Ex-Ameriprise adviser gets five years for fraud; ordered to repay B-D $2.7M

An Ooltewah, Tenn., financial adviser has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay more than $2.7 million in restitution to his former broker-dealer, Ameriprise Financial Inc., after pleading guilty to misappropriating his clients' money while he worked for the Minneapolis-based firm. According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Tennessee, 41-year-old Delbert Foster Blount III pleaded guilty in April 2009 to mail fraud, wire fraud and income tax evasion. According to the plea agreement, Mr. Blount advised clients to invest money in various accounts and then used the money for himself. When clients wanted their money returned, he would take money from other investors to pay them. He carried out the scheme from June 2000 until December 2006. Mr. Blount, who worked for Ameriprise from March 1998 until January 2007, was sentenced Monday. He was also sentenced to three years of supervised release. Mr. Blount deposited customers' checks into his own bank account, according to the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance. Ameriprise discovered the deposits when an unnamed client complained that they weren't properly credited. Ameriprise reimbursed customers $2 million. “His intent was to put the money back,” said Mr. Blount's attorney, R. Deno Cole of The Law Offices of McGehee Stewart Cole Dupree & Roper. “Just like anybody else that gets caught up in the high life, he didn't pay it back as he should have. Once you get away with it, it's like a gambling addiction.” An Ameriprise spokesman did not immediately respond to an e-mail requesting comment on the decision. The Associated Press and Bloomberg contributed to this story.