BATON ROUGE, LA - United States Attorney Walt Green announced the conviction of a former investment adviser who stole up to $9.5 million from his victims in an investment fraud scheme.
On March 6, 2017, BRYAN LEE ADDINGTON, age 55, of Ethel, Louisiana, pled guilty to mail fraud and aggravated identity theft before Senior U.S. District Judge James J. Brady. As a result of his guilty pleas, ADDINGTON faces imprisonment, fines, restitution orders, forfeiture, and a term of supervised release following imprisonment. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled.
As ADDINGTON acknowledged in court during his guilty plea, from in or about January 2010 through at least April 2016, he executed a fraudulent scheme to defraud victim investors through materially false and fraudulent pretenses, promises, and representations. Throughout the scheme, as ADDINGTON solicited funds from clients, he failed to invest the investment funds as promised and instead sent them false account statements often addressed from non-existent post office boxes. ADDINGTON purportedly paid distributions to his victims, but such distributions were often paid with money that actually belonged to other victim investors. ADDINGTON also admitted to forging his associate’s signature for the purpose of furthering his fraud scheme. ADDINGTON fraudulently obtained between $1.5 million and $9.5 million from his scheme; the court will determine a specific amount at or prior to ADDINGTON’S sentencing.
U.S. Attorney Green stated: “Investment fraud often leaves a devastated trail of victims in its wake. That is one of the many reasons investment fraud is, and will continue to be, a high priority for my office and the U.S. Department of Justice generally. I commend the diligent and outstanding efforts of all the prosecutors and agents who have worked on this important matter.”
This matter is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Louisiana, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, and the Louisiana Office of Financial Institutions, in coordination with the Louisiana Department of Insurance and Louisiana State Police. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ryan Rezaei and Ryan Crosswell.