Ex-RIA Comptroller in Father-Daughter Ponzi Scheme Gets 6-Year Sentence

SAI is the introducing broker for Securities America advisory clients and both have been owned by Advisor Group since the merger of Advisor Group and Ladenburg Thalmann was finalized in February 2020.

'Pilfered' Retirement Savings

"Over two decades, Bell and her father Hector May ruthlessly orchestrated a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme," Williams said in a statement on Tuesday.

"They pilfered the retirement savings of over 15 victims, including vulnerable aging couples, close friends, relatives, and an employment pension plan of a construction company," Williams said, adding: "Bell now joins her father in prison to be held accountable for this devastating crime."

May advised the victims, among other things, that they should use money from their accounts to have Executive Compensation Planners instead of Securities America (described in court documents as "Broker Dealer-1") purchase bonds on their behalf.

With Bell's help, May guided the victims, first, to withdraw their money from their Securities America accounts, and second, to send that money to the ECP custodial account by wire transfer or check.

At times, when ECP was running out of cash and desperately needed to make supposed bond interest payments to avoid exposing the scheme, Bell reached out to the victims directly, according to the Justice Department.

After the victims sent their money to the ECP custodial account, May and Bell did not use the money to buy bonds. Instead, they transferred the money to ECP's "operating" account and spent it on business expenses, personal expenses, and to make payments to certain victims to help perpetuate the scheme and conceal the fraud, according to the Justice Department.

In that way, from the late 1990s through March 9, 2018, Bell and May induced the victims to forward them more than $11.4 million, the Justice Department said.

May provided Bell with bond names and false interest earnings, and Bell created ECP computerized account statements and had them distributed to the victims.

As part of the scheme, May even drove to the home of a stroke victim he and Bell had been defrauding of millions of dollars to retrieve the legitimate statements being sent by Securities America and later replaced them with Bell's fake consolidated statements purporting to show the victim's investments had been growing, according to the Justice Department.

Bell used her role as the RIA's comptroller and chief compliance officer to help conceal the fraud from Securities America, according to the Justice Department.

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