The Office of the Attorney General of New Jersey, which oversees the agency that has proposed the state’s new fiduciary rule, is recommending a three-year sentence in state prison for a Livingston, New Jersey, investment broker who pleaded guilty to stealing over $270,000 from an elderly couple.
Under the plea deal, Michael Alan Siegel must pay full restitution of $270,283 to the surviving member of the couple. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 13.
Siegel worked with the couple from approximately July 2013 through January 2016 while employed first as an investment advisor representative at Concorde Asset Management and then as an agent at National Securities Corp. During some of that time he was also the sole owner, officer and director of NJLI, which is purportedly in the business of selling insurance and annuities, according to the civil case that the Bureau of Securities initially brought against Siegel, before referring the case to the Division of Criminal Justice.
Starting around January 2014, Siegel “encouraged the couple to invest in what he called an ‘options’ program that he characterized as a safe institutional trading program for preferred customers,” directing the couple to make their checks payable to Siegel rather his firm, according to the AG’s press release. The funds were never invested in an options program because it didn’t exist, and Siegel pocketed the money.