Rebecca Parrett’s Husband to Plead Guilty to Helping Her Flee

By David Voreacos  Aug 26, 2011 9:01 PM MT 

The husband of Rebecca Parrett, a former National Century Financial Enterprises Inc. executive who hid in Mexico after her U.S. conviction in a $2.9 billion fraud, agreed to plead guilty for lying about her flight.

Gary Green, 51, will admit lying to investigators about the location of his wife, according to records made public yesterday in federal court in Columbus, Ohio. Parrett fled days after her conviction in March 2008 for her role in a fraud at National Century, a defunct health-care financing company.

Parrett, 62, was arrested Oct. 26 by Mexican immigration authorities in the resort town of Ajijic, Jalisco, more than 2 1/2 years after disappearing. She was convicted in Columbus and was on bail when she fled her home in Carefree, Arizona, where she lived with Green, her sixth husband. He was arrested Jan. 6 in southern California and released on $5,000 bond.

“We anticipate that he will plead guilty and be sentenced in Los Angeles,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Squires in a telephone interview. “Under the plea agreement, he’ll serve five months in jail and five months of house arrest.”

Green attorney Steven Scott Nolder, an assistant federal public defender, didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Denied Contact

A U.S. Marshal’s arrest complaint said Green talked by phone with Parrett and denied to investigators in 2008 and 2009 that he had any contact with her. Green also misled investigators about giving $10,000 in cash and clothes to a Mexican woman to deliver to his wife, according to the complaint. The woman, who didn’t know Parrett’s identity at the time, later helped investigators.

Parrett appeared Dec. 23 before U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley, who had sentenced her in absentia in March 2009 and imposed a $2.38 billion restitution order. Parrett said she had been sick and on medication when she was convicted.

“When you said guilty, I just felt like my body went into a black hole,” Parrett told the judge. “I just did not want to live anymore. So my course to Mexico was not to escape. My course to Mexico was to die, your honor. But that didn’t happen either.”

After Parrett’s arrest, Deputy U.S. Marshal Brian Babtist said she was “living in the lap of luxury” in Ajijic on the north shore of Lake Chapala.

Went Dancing

She used an alias and told people she was an American who testified against others in a large white-collar crime case, he said. She went out dancing and got treatments from a Mexican anti-aging doctor, Babtist said.

Parrett was convicted with four other executives of fraud, money laundering and conspiracy. A former vice chairman, secretary and treasurer, she is one of 10 executives who were convicted at trial or pleaded guilty. On the day he sentenced Parrett, Marbley imposed a 30-year term on former Chief Executive Officer Lance Poulsen.

A federal appeals court two days ago upheld the conviction and sentence of Poulsen.

The case is U.S. v. Poulsen, 06-129, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio (Columbus).

To contact the reporter on this story: David Voreacos in Newark, New Jersey atdvoreacos@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.

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