The former owner of an insurance agency in Tinton Falls, N.J., was sentenced to state prison for three years and ordered to pay $160,176 in restitution for pocketing premiums of clients without obtaining coverage for them.

Anthony M. Feliz, 46, of Brick, N.J., failed to acquire the insurance policies for 16 businesses that paid insurance premiums to his insurance agency, AMF Insurance Services Agency, according to Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office.

Feliz was the focus of a five-year investigation by the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance that began in 2002 when Karabinchak Brothers, an industrial construction company located in Edison, N.J., complained to state and local authorities that Feliz had not provided the mandatory insurance needed to run its business.

Investigators found that the insurance policies and identification cards that Feliz gave his clients were counterfeit. When they contacted the insurance companies whose names appeared on the documents and discovered that those carriers did not insure Feliz’s clients, according to prosecutors.

On Feb. 10, Felix pleaded guilty to second-degree theft by failure to make required disposition of property.  Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Richard W. English sentenced him to three years and prison and ordered him to pay the restitution to his 16 clients.