SAINT PAUL – Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman announced that a former insurance agent from Minnetrista was sentenced on Monday to 34 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $261,000 in restitution for committing fraud against several clients, including a 79-year-old woman and a couple in their late 70s.
Paul M. Bardine, 55, had earlier pleaded guilty to three counts of theft by swindle over $35,000 in Hennepin County District Court.
The case was investigated by the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau and the Commerce Department’s Enforcement Division. It was prosecuted by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Bardine was an insurance agent in Minnesota whose license became inactive in August 2012.
Beginning in the summer of 2013, he persuaded several of his clients to cash out annuities he had previously sold them. He encouraged them to invest their money with one of his companies, O.B. Investment, offering an annual rate of return ranging from six to 13 percent.