{"id":21880,"date":"2024-05-21T04:13:36","date_gmt":"2024-05-21T04:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thinkadvisor.com\/2024\/05\/20\/ex-advisor-who-lied-about-attempting-suicide-gets-3-5-years-for-bilking-client\/"},"modified":"2024-05-21T04:13:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T04:13:36","slug":"ex-advisor-who-lied-about-attempting-suicide-gets-3-5-years-for-bilking-client","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2024\/05\/21\/ex-advisor-who-lied-about-attempting-suicide-gets-3-5-years-for-bilking-client\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Advisor Who Lied About Attempting Suicide Gets 3.5 Years for Bilking Client"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/feeds.feedblitz.com\/-\/897176831\/0\/thinkadvisor\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2021\/08\/Crime_Hands_Handcuffs_Jail_Adobe_640x640.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.thinkadvisor.com\/contrib\/content\/uploads\/sites\/415\/2021\/08\/Crime_Hands_Handcuffs_Jail_Adobe_640x640.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"the-advisor bullet-summary\">\n<h3>What You Need to Know<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>The client faced home foreclosure after the advisor failed to make mortgage payments as promised, the DOJ says.<\/li>\n<li>The client had worked 40 years for an air conditioning company and couldn&#8217;t read.<\/li>\n<li>The advisor used his car, rather than his bank employer&#8217;s office, to meet with the client.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p id=\"first-para\">A former Maryland financial advisor who lied about attempting suicide has been sentenced to&nbsp;3 1\/2 years in federal prison for stealing an elderly client\u2019s life savings.<\/p>\n<p>Eddy Ray Blizzard, 45, who made a plea agreement, stole nearly $1 million from a now-deceased client, \u201cR.M.,\u201d over many years, causing the man\u2019s home to go into foreclosure a few months before he died in 2020, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-md\/pr\/maryland-financial-advisor-sentenced-three-and-half-years-federal-prison-stealing\">Justice Department<\/a> announced earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>R.M., who had a ninth grade education and couldn\u2019t read or write, started investing and became Blizzard\u2019s client shortly after taking a buyout and retiring in 2003 following a 40-year career as a commercial air conditioning installer in Maryland, according to the department.<\/p>\n<p>The client died in 2020 when he was roughly 75 years old, the year after his house was foreclosed on because Blizzard hadn\u2019t made promised mortgage payments,. according to the Justice Department, which said the former advisor also stole some of R.M.\u2019s Social Security income.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEddy Blizzard deserves every year he will spend behind bars. His cruel and calculated scheme went on for years and his brazen deception caused great harm to the victim and his family,\u201d William J. DelBagno,&nbsp;special agent in charge of the FBI\u2019s Baltimore field office, said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe victim spent his life working diligently, saving for retirement, and building an inheritance for his loved ones. Blizzard not only stole a million dollars, but took away their security and peace of mind. The FBI will not stand idly by as fraudsters and cheats take advantage of our elderly citizens. We, along with our law enforcement partners, vow to identify, investigate and pursue those targeting vulnerable people in Maryland,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Blizzard admitted that after becoming the client\u2019s financial advisor, he began asking R.M. for signed blank checks, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n<p>The advisor used the checks for personal purposes, not to benefit R.M., who visited his local bank to withdraw cash about 12 times and was told the account lacked sufficient funds,&nbsp;the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office in Maryland said.<\/p>\n<p>R.M. would then call Blizzard to let him know about the deficiency, and Blizzard would tell him to wait a day or two and funds would be there, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>Blizzard held several licenses that allowed him to operate as a registered broker and investment advisor, according to the plea agreement. From 2003 to 2014, he was employed by a bank securities company, or \u201cBank 1,\u201d and from 2014 to 2017 was employed by a bank investment services company, \u201cBank 2,\u201d both in Maryland, the Justice Department noted.<\/p>\n<p>Blizzard <a href=\"https:\/\/brokercheck.finra.org\/individual\/summary\/4407504\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">was registered<\/a> with M&amp;T Securities Inc. for the former period and SunTrust Investment Services for the latter, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority\u2019s BrokerCheck.<\/p>\n<p>When R.M. retired and decided to invest his retirement funds to provide his grandchildren with an inheritance, he sought&nbsp;investment advice from Bank 1, where he had his depository accounts, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n<p>Blizzard began working at Bank 1 shortly after R.M. began investing there and became his&nbsp; financial advisor. Blizzard has admitted that in about 2005, he told R.M. that he \u201cwent out on his own\u201d as an independent financial advisor and asked R.M. if the client wanted to leave Bank 1 and use Blizzard as a full-time financial advisor, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What You Need to Know The client faced home foreclosure after the advisor failed to make mortgage payments as promised, the DOJ says. The client had worked 40 years for an air conditioning company&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[1],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/ex-advisor-who-lied-about-attempting-suicide-gets-3-5-years-for-bilking-client.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21880"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}