According to a newly filed lawsuit, the Berkeley County School District alleges its former insurance carrier and two agents defrauded the district out of millions of dollars with the help of the district’s former CFO.

According to court records, two insurance consultants provided former CFO Brantley Thomas with kickbacks and a cover for embezzlement.  In return Thomas pushed the school district to buy extra, unneeded insurance policies.  Those premium and other fees ultimately cost the district more than $14.1 million.  The district is now seeking $42 million.

“As a Board we will pursue every avenue to right the terrible wrongs that have been carried out against the children of Berkeley County SchoolDistrict,” said board Chairwoman Sally Wofford. “Our goal is to recover all monies lost by BCSD.”

In federal court this week, Thomas admitted he was accepting $2,000 every month as a kickback for doing business with the insurance agents.

News 2 reached out to the insurance company, Hub International Limited.  A spokesperson said the policies sold to the Berkeley County School District are similar to those sold to other school districts in the state.   The spokesperson also said Hub has been working with authorities for the last year on their investigation.  So far one of the men named in the suit isn’t working for the company any longer.  The second is still employed.

But the school district’s attorney, Josh Whitley,  wrote in the suit, the District has maintained insurance with the South Carolina Insurance Reserve Fund (“IRF”), as well as property and casualty insurance through the IRF, “which have always been more than sufficient to cover all of the District’s liability and property insurance needs.”

Whitley claims the former agents advised the District to purchase “various forms of insurance that they knew were unnecessary, as the risks in question were either negligible or non-existent or already covered by insurance procured by the District through the IRF or insurance was available to the District through the IRF for much less.”