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Industry Spotlight > Broker Dealers

Dallas Cowboy Sues Ameriprise Over Advisor’s Fraud

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Ameriprise Financial is being sued by Dallas Cowboy Darren McFadden for $15 million.

The running back says ex-advisor Michael Vick (no relationship to the former football player of the same name who went to prison over a dog-fighting ring) mismanaged his accounts and took his funds and that Ameriprise was aware of Vick’s fraudulent activities and neither stopped them nor informed McFadden about them.

“This is a case about Ameriprise Financial’s negligence and active concealment of its former employee and ‘financial adviser’ who, while working at Ameriprise Financial, manipulated plaintiff Darren McFadden at a young age to seize broad and sweeping control over all of plaintiff’s professional income, assets and retirement savings,” McFadden said in the lawsuit.

In an earlier lawsuit, the professional football player accused the ex-advisor of cheating him out of millions of dollars over eight years through withdrawals and fraudulent transfers. 

The new lawsuit, filed May 12 in federal court in Little Rock, Arkansas, accuses Ameriprise of being aware of Vick’s unlawful account activity and not informing the client about the actions, though it suspended the advisor; Vick left the broker-dealer in 2010, according to a news report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but McFadden was not told about the departure, he claims.

McFadden, who has played in the NFL for a decade, met Vick in 2008 after signing a $60 million contract with the Oakland Raiders.

“Specifically, commencing under the direct supervision of defendant Ameriprise Financial, Vick ultimately misappropriated in excess of $15 million of McFadden’s monies and assets, while further wrongfully encumbering McFadden with unnecessary debts and related penalties,” the recent lawsuit states.

The football player asserts he was not informed about a 10-month investigation into Vick’s behavior, which led to his suspension from Ameriprise. “Ameriprise Financial never, at any time, informed McFadden that Vick was under investigation and ultimately suspended for suspicious and unauthorized account activity,” according to the complaint.

As for its view of the lawsuit, the broker-dealer said in a statement, “We just received the complaint and we are still reviewing it.”

— Check out SEC Charges Ex-NFL Player With Defrauding Former Coaches, Elderly on ThinkAdvisor.


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