A federal court in Pennsylvania has sentenced Anthony Diaz, a former registered representative, to 210 months’ imprisonment and three years of supervised release for wire fraud and mail fraud offenses. He was taken into custody immediately after the sentencing.
Diaz was convicted of the offenses on January 30, 2020 following a 12-day jury trial, at which he blamed his inability to properly handle “paperwork” for his clients’ losses.
From approximately 2008 through April 2015, Diaz owned and operated Financial Planners Group of America, a financial planning business in East Stroudsburg and Scotrun, Pennsylvania, through which he persuaded clients to invest in high-risk, illiquid alternative investments that regularly earned him more than $1.5 million a year in commissions.
Jurors also learned that Diaz was terminated by five broker-dealers and permitted to resign by a sixth.
He was suspended by the Certified Financial Planners Board of Standards in 2013, and was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Pennsylvania Department of Banking in 2015.
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