ALBANY, Ga. — A Texas man acting as an insurance adjuster who cheated a southwest Georgia church damaged by Hurricane Michael has now been sentenced, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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Andrew Mitchell, 46, of Houston, Texas, who posed as an insurance adjuster, inflated repair costs and forged endorsements to divert funds from Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, which issued over $6.8 million for Friendship Missionary Baptist Church’s repairs after Hurricane Michael.
A judge sentenced him to 19 years in prison. Mitchell was also ordered to pay $2,895,903.01 to Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company and $1,082,993.41 to other victims in Texas and Louisiana.
“Andrew Mitchell will spend nearly two decades in prison for concocting a devious scheme to swindle insurance money from a historic downtown Albany church,” said U.S. Attorney William R. “Will” Keyes.
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“At a time when victims were still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Michael, Andrew Mitchell took advantage of that vulnerability for his own personal gain,” said Georgia Insurance Commissioner John F. King.
Hurricane Michael struck Albany, Georgia, as a Category 3 hurricane, not a Category 5.
According to court documents, Mitchell, under the alias Eric Goldberg, met with church officials and presented himself as a contractor and public adjuster. He submitted inflated repair estimates to the insurance company, leading to the issuance of large checks, which he then diverted for personal use.
The attorney’s office said Mitchell forged endorsements on checks intended for the church and misled construction companies about the status of insurance payments. Despite receiving substantial funds, the church received less than a third of the insurance money, and repairs remained incomplete.
Mitchell’s sentence will run concurrently with a separate prison sentence imposed in Louisiana, and he will serve an additional 18 months after completing the Louisiana sentence.
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