Texas Broker's 90-Car Seizure Shrinks to 17 Vehicles as Victims Wait

Clayton Lloyd Iley, a 41-year-old Stephenville, Texas, insurance broker, collected more than $2 million from clients who never received the policies they paid for, and the exotic car collection prosecutors seized to repay them is already smaller than the headlines suggested.

The Auto Wire first reported the divergence between two federal forfeiture lists published by the same U.S. Attorney's Office, revealing that the "more than 90 exotic collector vehicles" figure attached to the case obscures a harder truth: only 17 vehicles have reached the preliminary order of forfeiture stage, and eight cars that appeared on an earlier July list have quietly disappeared from the October one. This is the story of insurance fraud forfeiture Texas victims need to understand before the final gavel falls.

A Texas insurance broker's car collection started shrinking before victims saw a dime

Iley ran Clayton Texas Legacy Insurance Group, LLC out of Cross Plains, Texas. From January 2020 through May 2026, according to court records cited by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, he ran at least three overlapping schemes: collecting more than $2 million for a Department of Defense "Bonded Note" loan program that did not exist, taking insurance premiums from clients without ever opening the policies they requested, and using clients' personal information to open credit cards in their names.

He pleaded guilty on June 17. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman sentenced him on October 1 to 160 months in federal prison.

Both the plea announcement and the sentencing announcement say Iley agreed to forfeit more than 90 exotic collector vehicles bought with proceeds from the scheme. That number is real. What it does not tell you is how many of those vehicles have actually been secured through a court order, and how many of those will survive lienholder claims, government storage costs, and legal fees before a single dollar reaches a victim.

As The Auto Wire noted, the restitution fund for Iley's victims is "whatever survives a legal process that pays other people first, and on paper it has been getting smaller."

That process has already produced a surprising result: the forfeiture list shrank by eight vehicles between July and October.

How two federal lists for the same case ended up with different numbers

On July 30, federal prosecutors in Fort Worth published a list of 22 vehicles that investigators had seized from Iley. On October 2, the same office published a second list, this time of vehicles both seized and covered by a preliminary order of forfeiture. That list has 17 entries.

Eight cars from the July list are simply not on the October one.

Neither release explains why. The government offered no public accounting of the discrepancy. Several ordinary explanations are plausible: a lender or other third party may claim an interest in some of those cars, prosecutors may be pursuing them under a separate order, or the July list may have contained errors. The public record establishes none of these.

What the record does establish is this: 17 vehicles out of a promised 90-plus, fewer than one in five, have reached the preliminary-order stage, and the list has already been revised once downward.

The October list also adds three vehicles not on the July list: a second 2015 Lamborghini Huracán, a 2023 Jeep Gladiator, and an entry reading "2012 Lamborghini Model Ave," which sits two lines above "2012 Lamborghini Aventador." Since the July list had only one 2012 Lamborghini, the October list may count the same car twice. The releases do not clarify this.

Which cars made both lists, and which vanished

Here is what the two federal releases show when lined up side by side.

Vehicles on BOTH the July 30 list and the October 2 list:

Vehicles added in the October 2 list only:

• Second 2015 Lamborghini Huracán
• 2023 Jeep Gladiator
• "2012 Lamborghini Model Ave" (may be a duplicate of the Aventador)

Eight vehicles on the July 30 list with NO October counterpart:

• 1969 Chevrolet Camaro
• 1974 Chevrolet Camaro
• 1982 Chevrolet Camaro
• 1979 Pontiac Trans Am
• 1973 Plymouth coupe
• 2006 Dodge Viper
• 2016 Mercedes-Benz AMG coupe
• 2024 Dodge Ram

Most of the absent cars are older American muscle, not the late-model European exotics that dominate the remaining list.

"The July list has only one 2012 Lamborghini, so the October list may count the same car twice. I can't tell from the release.", The Auto Wire

Why lienholders, storage costs, and legal fees get paid before victims do

A preliminary order of forfeiture is final as to the defendant at sentencing. It is not yet final against everyone else.

Under 21 U.S.C. § 853(n), the government must publish notice of the forfeiture order, in practice, that means posting it on forfeiture.gov for at least 30 consecutive days. Any third party then has 30 days from the final day of publication to file a petition claiming an interest in a vehicle. A petitioner wins by showing their interest was superior to the defendant's at the time the crimes were committed, or by proving they bought the property for value without reason to suspect it was forfeitable.

A bank holding a properly recorded lien fits that standard easily.

The plea release states that Iley used credit cards opened in victims' names to "charge personal expenses and payments towards the purchase of the vehicles." The phrase "payments toward a purchase" suggests at least some of the cars were bought on credit. If a lender holds a valid lien, that lender is paid from the vehicle's sale proceeds before anything enters the victims' restitution pool.

After lienholders come the government's own carrying costs. Under the Justice Department's remission rules at 28 C.F.R. § 9.8, victims can recover no more than their share of net proceeds, what remains after permitted government expenses and valid third-party claims are satisfied.

Those expenses are not trivial. A seized Huracán or MC20 must be transported on a flatbed, stored indoors, insured, and kept in running condition until auction. Tires flat-spot. Fluids age. The Taycan's high-voltage battery cannot simply be disconnected and forgotten. A Humvee and a five-ton military six-by-six require their own specialized transport. Every month those eight unexplained vehicles take to resolve is another month of storage costs drawn from the remaining pool.

The U.S. Marshals Service, which serves as the primary custodian of seized property for the Justice Department's forfeiture program, reported 24,179 assets worth $8.2 billion on hand as of September 30, 2025, and $475 million distributed to victims of crime and claimants that fiscal year. Iley's 17 cars are a small slice of that inventory.

"A fraudster's cars are easy to photograph and easy to count, and the count tends to be the largest number anyone attaches to the case.", The Auto Wire

Iley's clients may have been driving uninsured without knowing it

Iley's agency advertised home, auto, life, health, farm and ranch, and commercial coverage. Prosecutors say he collected premium payments from specific clients and never opened the policies they paid for.

For those clients, the consequences were severe, and invisible.

A driver who paid for auto coverage that was never written would have been operating a vehicle on Texas roads without insurance, without knowing it. Under Texas law, drivers are required to pay for the accidents they cause. Without an active policy, any collision during that period becomes the driver's personal financial liability.

Texas law treats an agent's misuse of premium money as theft. Section 4005.153 of the Texas Insurance Code states that an agent who embezzles or converts premiums "shall be punished as if the person had stolen the money." Section 4005.101 allows the state to discipline a license holder who has misappropriated money belonging to an insured.

When the license portal of the Texas Department of Insurance was searched for Clayton Iley on October 8, it returned the result: "No active license exists." The portal does not display license history, so that result alone does not confirm whether he held a license while selling policies.

For Texas drivers trying to understand how this exposure happens, the Save Max Quote Index, drawn from 3.3 million+ real quote requests, consistently shows that uninsured motorist coverage is one of the most frequently underpriced and underutilized protections in the state, in part because drivers assume their agent handled the paperwork correctly. The SMQI data makes clear that the gap between paying a premium and holding an active policy is where real financial exposure lives.

What this means for you

If you are a Texas driver, do not assume an agent's confirmation email means a policy exists at the carrier level. Use TexasSure, a database run jointly by Texas motor vehicle, insurance, public safety, and information resources departments, to verify your vehicle has required coverage on file with the state. Call the insurance company directly and request a declarations page to confirm the policy exists at the carrier, not only in the agent's records. Visit the Texas Department of Insurance's licensed-agent lookup tool to verify your broker holds an active license before you hand over another premium payment. If you want to see how neighboring Oklahoma drivers or Louisiana policyholders handle similar verification steps, those state guides walk through the same process with local regulatory contacts.

Three court filings that will reveal what victims actually recover

Three documents will answer the question the press releases leave open.

The first is the final order of forfeiture. Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.2, this order amends the preliminary order to account for any third-party petitions filed during the 30-day notice window. If the eight absent vehicles are added back, or new ones appear, they will show up here.

The second is the restitution figure in the criminal judgment. Neither the plea release nor the sentencing announcement states the restitution amount. That number, once entered, will give victims a formal measure of what the court says they are owed.

The third is the auction itself. Whoever the U.S. Marshals Service contracts to handle the sale will list the vehicles publicly. The final hammer prices, what a 2022 Maserati MC20 or a 1968 Pontiac Firebird brings after months in federal storage, will show what actually enters the distribution pool.

Until those filings appear, the reliable number is 17 vehicles secured under a preliminary order. For the people whose names went on Iley's credit cards and whose premiums never bought a policy, the number that matters is the net proceeds that actually reach them, and that figure is likely to fall well below the value of 90 cars.

FAQ

About Taleah McGuire

Taleah McGuire is a Regional Analyst at Save Max Auto with 11+ years of insurance experience including senior roles at Kentucky Farm Bureau. She covers regulatory news, state-specific reform legislation, and traditional carrier coverage. Read more from Taleah McGuire →

Edited by Brooke Grissom.

Methodology

This article is grounded in the source linked above. Save Max Auto data points referenced here are drawn from the Save Max Quote Index (SMQI), a proprietary instrument reflecting 3,364,317 real consumer quote requests submitted to savemaxauto.com. State and carrier rankings reflect the lifetime dataset; year-over-year shifts reflect a rolling 12-month window. The index is refreshed monthly. External authority figures referenced (NAIC, NHTSA, state regulators) reflect the most recent public data releases available at time of writing.

Sources

• Primary source: The Auto Wire, "Eight Cars, Including Three Camaros and a Trans Am, Fell Off the Feds' List in a Texas Insurance Fraud Case"