SAVANNAH, GA: Edmund A. Booth, Jr., United States Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia, announced that Ingerberth Baird, age 38, was tried yesterday, Tuesday, January 29, 2008, before a jury in U S. District Court in Savannah and convicted of one count of conspiracy, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, one count of making false claims against the United States, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 287, and one count of mail fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1341. U.S. District Judge John F. Nangle presided over the trial.

The evidence at trial established that Ingerberth Baird and his wife, Nicolette, lived in Hinesville, Georgia, in 2002. Ingerberth Baird was an enlisted officer in the U.S. Army, posted at Ft. Stewart. Nicolette Baird was an elementary school teacher at Joseph Martin Elementary School in Hinesville.

In September 2002, Nicolette Baird requested time off to travel to Trinidad, her place of birth, to attend a family funeral. Several days later, a person identifying himself as Nicolette’s husband called the principal of Joseph Martin Elementary to report that Nicolette had died in an automobile accident in Trinidad. Ingerberth Baird sought leave from his duties with the United States Army and traveled to Trinidad shortly after Nicolette’s reported death, spending eleven days there before returning to the United States.

The evidence further showed that in October and November, 2002, Ingerberth Baird applied for benefits under life insurance policies covering Nicolette through the U.S. Army (under the Family Servicemembers Group Life Insurance program, or “FSGLI”) and the Liberty County, Georgia school system. In connection with those claims, he presented a handwritten death certificate and handwritten police report purportedly describing Nicolette’s death in Trinidad.

Ingerberth Baird received over $100,000 from the U.S. Army FSGLI policy on Nicolette. The benefit was paid in the form of a checking account funded with the entire benefit amount, and a checkbook drawn on that account was mailed to Ingerberth Baird at his home. Over the course of October and November, 2002, Ingerberth Baird wrote numerous checks that totally depleted the entire account.

In December 2002, Ingerberth Baird left the United States for Trinidad. Shortly thereafter, it was determined that the death claim was false in that the handwritten death certificate was counterfeit and that no registrar of deaths with the name listed on the death certificate actually existed.

In April 2003, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation located Ingerberth Baird and Nicolette Baird, alive, living together in Cunupia, Trinidad. At that time, Ingerberth Baird admitted to the FBI agents that he knew on his first trip to Trinidad in September 2002, right after his wife’s reported death, that no accident had occurred and that his wife was alive. Baird was extradited from Trinidad to face the charges in this case in June 2007.

Booth noted that the maximum statutory penalty for the convictions of conspiracy and false claims against the government is five years imprisonment, and the maximum statutory penalty for the mail fraud conviction is twenty years imprisonment. Each count of conviction is also punishable by a fine of not more than $250,000. A sentencing date will be scheduled following completion of a pre-sentence investigation and report. Baird remains in custody.

Booth praised the efforts of Special Agents Joseph Swiatek and Freddie Watkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The United States was represented by Assistant United States Attorneys R. Brian Tanner and Brian F. McEvoy.

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