Commissioner: Schrenker Under Investigation Since '07

INDIANAPOLIS -- An investment manager who had been on the run following an alleged faked death scheme had been on the radar of the Indiana Department of Insurance since 2007.

Insurance Commissioner Jim Atterholt said Tuesday that Marc Schrenker, 38, has victims all over the country who have been caught up in what he described as "churning annuities."

"Not only did he sell them annuities, but he then had them sell them again and transfer them to other insurance companies where he received very large commissions, or surrender charges," Atterholt said. "These folks have been paying hundreds of thousands of dollars needlessly, because he keeps shifting them from one product to another."

Charles Kinney said Schrenker had befriended him as a fellow pilot and convinced him and his extended family in Georgia to invest $900,000 in annuities that Schrenker had recommended.

"I think he's the most despicable human I've ever met," Kinney said in a phone interview. "It's sickening beyond words, because you're taking people's life savings and basically using it for your own good and you're totally screwing them."

Kinney said he had contacted insurance departments in Kentucky and Georgia, but that those states had declined to take the case.

Kinney credited the dogged determination of Lisa Harpenau, an intern in the Indiana office in 2007 and now a department lawyer, with helping him lodge and shepherd a complaint through the system.

"It was a slow process of discovery. At every turn, we kept turning over rocks and they were all bad," Kinney said.

Some insurance companies have rescinded the annuity contracts and returned some of the Kinneys' money, but they have not given back the interest that had been made off the money.

Schrenker is scheduled for a court hearing on Thursday that will be held even if he doesn't appear. An administrative law judge could revoke Schrenker's license and fine him up to $10,000 per charge.