Federal prosecutors focused heavily on the theme of deception as trial began Tuesday for suspended Georgia Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck.
Beck, who was indicted and suspended less than six months after taking office in 2019, is accused of stealing $2 million from his former employer, the Georgia Underwriters Association, before he won the election.
To conceal his alleged crimes, Beck lied to people — friends and a cousin — to dupe them into helping his scheme, prosecutor Sekret T. Sneed told the jury Tuesday.
“They trusted him for years and believed what he told them,” Sneed said. “Every step the defendant took was…so no one except Beck would know the full scheme.”
So complicated was the plot, Sneed said, that Beck had to make a flowchart to keep it all straight.