Dean Vagnozzi. (Photo by The Times Herald)
An advisor well-known in the Philadelphia area for encouraging investors to spurn 401(k)s and IRAs and embrace niche investments faces a new class-action suit on behalf of more than 50 investors claiming he defrauded them out of more than $15 million.
The latest complaint, filed Nov. 6 in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia with 55 named plaintiffs and then corrected Monday to include 57 plaintiffs, accuses Dean J. Vagnozzi, founder and CEO of the King of Prussia-based investment firm A Better Financial Plan (ABFP), of negligent misrepresentation, breach of fiduciary duties, conspiracy, fraud, unjust enrichment, aiding and abetting fraud, and aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duties.
The complaint brings its claims under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and alleges Vagnozzi and others named in the suit conspired to advertise, market and sell ABFP merchant cash advance investments, which are unregistered securities, as a purportedly safer and more profitable alternative to registered securities like stocks and bonds.
The defendants' "scheme began to unravel in March 2020, when thousands of small businesses defaulted on the merchant cash loans underlying the investments sold by ABFP," Edelson Lechtzin, one of the law firms representing the plaintiffs, says on its website.
"Panic among ABFP investors ensued when the interest payments stopped in March 2020," the law firm alleged, adding: "In late March 2020, Vagnozzi admitted that the merchant cash lender, Par Funding, was insolvent. By the end of April 2020, Vagnozzi had fraudulently induced hundreds of investors to enter into a so-called Exchange Notes Offering, which will pay ABFP investors 4% interest, instead of the promised 10% interest, and the repayment of principal will be delayed from the promised 1-year term to 7 years."
The law firm called the deal an "unmitigated disaster for ABFP investors, who include elderly persons and others on fixed incomes."
The complaint says that "Vagnozzi is well known in the Greater Philadelphia region for his ubiquitous AM radio advertisements promoting ABFP and its four types of investments — merchant cash advance funds, life settlement funds, litigation funding, and real estate funds.
"However, Vagnozzi's radio advertisements never mentioned that in May 2019, he agreed to pay a state-record $490,000 to settle charges by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities that he was selling securities without a license," the complaint points out.
