Daughter of New York Ponzi schemer gets more than 6 years in prison

Over two decades, Vania May Bell and her father Hector May 'ruthlessly orchestrated' a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, according to the Feds.

Vania May Bell, the daughter of former Securities America Inc. financial adviser and convicted fraudster Hector May, was sentenced this week to 80 months in federal prison for her role in a scheme that defrauded investment advisory clients of $11 million.

According to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the southern district of New York, Vania May Bell, 57, was the former comptroller of Executive Compensation Planners Inc., a registered investment adviser and financial planning firm located in New City, New York. She was also ordered to pay $8 million in restitution and forfeit $600,000 as part of her sentencing on Tuesday.

Hector May, her father and the former president of Executive Compensation Planners, pleaded guilty in 2018 and months later was sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to pay $8.4 million in restitution.

Bell was not a licensed broker, but her father, Hector May, was registered with Securities America from 1994 to 2018, according to his BrokerCheck profile.

“Over two decades, Bell and her father Hector May ruthlessly orchestrated a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in the statement. “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. Bell now joins her father in prison to be held accountable for this devastating crime.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission last year fined Securities America Advisers, the RIA arm of leading independent broker-dealer Securities America Inc., $1.75 million for allegedly failing to safeguard clients in the matter.

The scheme ran from the late 1990s to March 2018, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

This is how it worked.

May recommended that the clients, among other things, should use money from their broker-dealer to have his firm, rather than the broker-dealer, purchase bonds on their behalf, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

With his daughter’s assistance, May guided the clients to move money into his firm’s custodial accounts, but they did not purchase bonds for their clients. Instead, Bell and May transferred the money to Executive Compensation Planners’ so-called “operating” account and spent it on business expenses, personal expenses and to make payments to certain victims in order to perpetuate the scheme and conceal the fraud, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.