Nevada woman sentenced to 4 years for insurance policy scam

LAS VEGAS, Nev. (KOLO) – A Nevada woman has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for a $3.7 million fine art insurance policy scam.

The DOJ says that 59-year-old Tonja Van Roy of Las Vegas defrauded a lender out of millions by submitting bogus applications for fine art insurance for commercial clients but instead used the money for herself.

Van Roy will also be required to pay $1.8 million in restitution and pled guilty to one count of wire fraud on Jan. 6.

Van Roy operated a Northridge, California based insurance company specializing in art collections called Pegasus Insurance. From January 2021 to December 2023, Van Roy created and submitted dozens of fraudulent finance agreements to AFCO Credit Corp, an Illinois-based provider of insurance premium finance. According to the DOJ, Van Roy did this to finance insurance policies she claimed to have sold to art galleries.

The DOJ says Van Roy made up the insurance policy numbers and forged electronic signatures for fictitious insureds. She then used the money to fund her lifestyle, which included payments on dozens of credit cards.

When the loans came due, Van Roy submitted additional fraudulent finance agreements to AFCO and used the proceeds from the new loans to make it appear as though the old loans were paid.

“[Van Roy] embarked on a sophisticated, multiyear scheme to borrow fraudulently over $3.7 million dollars using her insider’s knowledge of the insurance industry,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “[She] has more than 25 years of experience working as an insurance agent, during which time she sold countless insurance policies and worked for many different insurance agencies before founding her own; she had an expert’s understanding of the industry, which allowed her to manipulate her victims and avoid detection for years.”

Copyright 2025 KOLO. All rights reserved.