NEW ROCHELLE, NY — A financial advisor admitted to going to great lengths to hide his embezzlement from a 64-year-old client.
Adam Belardino, the chief executive officer of the Maddox Group, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to the Internal Revenue Service in connection with separate schemes to defraud clients and to fail to pay contributions made by his own Maddox Group employees to their 401(k) plan, Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, has announced.
Belardino entered a guilty plea in White Plains federal court on Thursday.
The scheme began to fall apart when the New Rochelle woman asked for her investments to be transferred to a new broker, feds said.
“Adam Belardino abused the trust his client placed in him by stealing more than $313,000 the client gave him to be invested,” Williams said. “Clients like the victim in this case need to be able to entrust their money to financial advisors with confidence that the money will be invested in a manner that is appropriate for them. This Office will aggressively pursue financial advisors and others who steal money entrusted to them by clients.”
Belardino had previously managed the victim’s investments at another firm before he founded Maddox in July 2019. In August 2019, he convinced the victim to liquidate some of her portfolio and to transfer the liquidated funds to Maddox for investment. She then transferred more than $313,000 to…