SEGAL HIT WITH 11 MORE COUNTS OF FRAUD:

Michael Segal, the president and CEO of Chicago-based Near North National Group, was already under federal indictment for 17 counts of fraud and racketeering. Now federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois have added 11 more fraud counts to the table, accusing the former owner of Near North Insurance Brokerage of asking former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan, a Republican, to intervene on his behalf with the state’s insurance deparment. Segal has pleaded innocent to all the charges and his trial is scheduled to begin April 19. Segal, accused of illegally misappropriating more than $20 million from his firm’s broker trust fund from 1990 through 2002, has repeatedly maintained that were there any problems with his accounting the insurance department would have spotted them.