Insurance Manager Gets 10-Year Term

A former Sons of Norway insurance and annuities sales manager was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for defrauding the group and its members of more than $9 million.

Michael Calozza, 47, of Snohomish pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court last June to 11 counts of fraud and money-laundering. He was sentenced by Judge William Dwyer.

From November 1985 to September 1994, Calozza persuaded more than 150 members of the Sons of Norway to give him money to invest in what he called a tax-exempt securities deal with a high rate of return.

But there was no such investment, said Katrina Pflaumer, the U.S. attorney for Western Washington.

Calozza also forged loan application on members’ life insurance polices and later forged the loan checks, Pflaumer said.

He used more than $2 million to pay off earlier “investors” and sustain the deception, Pflaumer said.

A substantial amount of the money also went toward gambling, she said.