A barred broker who used a client's funds to pay for his own business's operating expenses and his own personal expenses pleaded guilty on Thursday to two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to the Internal Revenue Service, according to court documents and Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
The charges related to separate schemes to defraud clients and to fail to pay contributions made by his firm's employees to the company 401(k) plan.
Adam Belardino, 37, of Manhattan faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison. Each count of wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, while the one count of making a false statement to the IRS carries a maximum sentence of five years, Williams said in a news release.
Belardino will be sentenced by Judge Kenneth M. Karas. A sentencing date wasn't provided.
Belardino is the CEO of the Maddox Group, a New York City financial services firm he founded in or about July 2019, according to an indictment filed against him April 21 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
From March 2017 to April 2019, Belardino was registered as a broker with MassMutual Investors Services. But the company terminated him "in connection with investigation into a customer complaint," according to a disclosure on his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's BrokerCheck website.
MassMutual did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Client Funds Used for Travel
Belardino had managed the investments of "Victim 1" at "another firm" before he founded Maddox, according to court documents and Williams. The name of the other firm wasn't provided in the court documents or by Williams. But it was MassMutual, according to BrokerCheck.
The client's name also wasn't given. But the court documents said she was a 64-year-old resident of New Rochelle, New York, as of September 2021.
