GREENSBORO, N.C. — Last week, a state agency arrested a Pitt County man and charged him with identity theft, obtaining property by false pretense and insurance fraud.
This agency wasn’t the SBI or Department of Crime Control and Public Safety. It was the Department of Insurance, which employs 20 sworn law-enforcement officers empowered to investigate crimes and arrest suspects. Last year, they made 109 arrests, helped obtain 53 criminal convictions and closed 525 cases with $14.5 million in restitution and recoveries.
With any kind of police work comes danger, sometimes deadly danger. Department of Insurance investigator Sallie Rohrbach, sent to audit a Charlotte insurance agency, disappeared last week; her body was found in a wooded area in York County, S.C., on Tuesday. Police have charged the owner of that insurance agency, Michael Arthur Howell, with her murder.
This case will take time to unravel, and details may not be disclosed until a defendant goes on trial. But if appearances hold true - that a state insurance investigator was murdered for doing her job - it’s an outrage.
Some of the wrongdoing investigators discover involves unscrupulous insurance agents who sell policies but pocket the premiums. That’s not only stealing, it potentially leaves clients without coverage. These sorts of crimes harm the public and undermine the integrity of the insurance industry.
What allegedly happened to Rohrbach, however, goes far beyond that. It’s repugnant, no less intolerable than killing a police officer who’s trying to stop a robbery or apprehend a suspect.
“I was shocked to read about it,” said Chris Mears, spokesman for another investigative agency, the Office of State Auditor. “The first thing that came to mind was how it relates to our office.”
Supervisors ask auditors to check in daily, and in situations that might become confrontational, two auditors are assigned, Mears said.
Procedures are similar in the Department of Insurance. Investigators are trained to call for backup if they feel threatened, spokeswoman Chrissy Pearson told The Charlotte Observer, but Rohrbach did not do so last week. The investigation of Howell’s Dilworth Insurance Agency was expected to be routine, not “anything egregious,” Pearson added.
For law-enforcement officers, including insurance investigators, even the routine has risks.
“I hope this is an isolated incident and nothing like this ever happens again,” Mears of the auditor’s office said. “But you prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
Authorities now have to deal with the worst. This disturbing crime demands thorough investigation and determined prosecution.
Copyright 2008 The News & Record