A former registered broker and advisor who served as a rep for Charles Schwab has been sentenced to a minimum of 16 years, 3 months and a maximum of 22 years, 5 months in prison for a scam in which he targeted retirees including his own father, according to the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State.
The 12 victims of Russell Joseph Mutter lost over $3.3 million between January 2009 and December 2017, according to the findings of a multi-year investigation led by law enforcement agents with the North Carolina Secretary of State's Securities Division, with the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
Mutter was charged with 41 counts of investment advisor fraud, financial exploitation of an older adult and obtaining property by false pretenses. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced Tuesday by Forsyth County Superior Court Judge David Hall, who consolidated the charges into three Class C felony counts for sentencing purposes.
Mutter was sentenced to a minimum of 65 months and a maximum of 90 months for each of the three counts, with the sentences to be served consecutively. He will get credit toward the sentence for the time he has served since his arrest.
The 12 victims were defrauded in Forsyth County and outside of North Carolina by Mutter, who removed funds from his clients' accounts without their authorization, invested some of his clients' funds in high-risk securities without their knowledge, and misused their funds.
When the speculative investments he made failed, Mutter sought to hide the losses by fabricating fraudulent account statements.
