A former Fidelity Investments employee has been charged with 10 counts of wire and mail fraud and five counts of money laundering for taking more than $2 million from a former client that he used to fund gambling activities, personal travel and to pay debts.
The United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida announced the charges Wednesday against Eric James Stone, who resides in St. Augustine, Florida. According to court documents, during his employment at Fidelity, Stone was a financial advisor or representative on investment accounts.
From roughly November 2007 through June 2021, Stone was an employee of Fidelity in Jacksonville, Florida. He was terminated by Fidelity on or around June 3, 2021, due to allegations that he solicited and obtained personal loans from his Fidelity clients.
On or about March 2, 2023, FINRA barred Stone due to his conduct at Fidelity.
After Stone was terminated, he began to solicit money from his former clients by way of personal loans, according to the DOJ.
"Stone promised to repay the loans but never did," the DOJ said. "After one victim provided loan proceeds to Stone, she was advised that there was an investigation into the funds and Stone had incurred costs and fees that also needed to be paid before Stone could repay her."
While working for Fidelity on May 4, 2021, Stone contacted the client and solicited a $30,000.00 personal loan, but never repaid it. He continued to defraud and to obtain money and property from the client — from July 2022 through September 2024 — by creating fake email accounts, fake text messages and pretending to hire attorneys to further defraud the victim.
Stone directed the former Fidelity client to send funds from the client's bank and other financial accounts to him via wire transfers, checks, Zelle payments, cash deposits to Bitcoin ATMs and other means.
He would also send Bitcoin wallet addresses and/or Quick Response codes for Bitcoin wallet addresses via text message to the client for the purpose of receiving funds, the court document states.
In total, Stone falsely induced the client to perform at least 613 financial transactions totaling at least $2,037,103, according to the court document.
The FBI's Jacksonville Office is looking for other victims that may have been scammed by Stone.
Fidelity did not respond to a request for comment as of press time Friday.
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