A financial advisor based in Long Island, New York, pleaded guilty April 3 to defrauding investors, including elderly ones, out of millions of dollars by misrepresenting investment funds called the "Camarda Funds."
Vincent Camarda, chairman and CEO of A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, of Massapequa, New York, faces up to 20 years in prison, as well as $160 million in restitution and forfeiture of $6.6 million.
Camarda also failed to disclose material conflicts — that he invested victims' funds in a single mining business, from which he received compensation, as well as a drive-through coffee shop called Buzz'd Express Coffee, LLC, which was run by his son and where Camarda served as president.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil charges the same day against A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, LLC and Camarda and James E. McArthur, with allegedly perpetrating an offering fraud that raised at least $138 million from at least 431 investors.
The investors, who were elderly and financially unsophisticated, were enticed "to purchase securities in the form of promissory notes issued by five high-risk private equity funds that Camarda and McArthur created, managed, and owned," the SEC said.
According to the Justice Department, in or about and between January 2017 and December 2024, Camarda, together with others, established several investment funds under AGM, and then engaged in a scheme to defraud his victims — clients that he owed a fiduciary duty.
"Camarda solicited funds from the victims by making material misrepresentations, both in private placement memorandums and orally, regarding the investment of their funds," DOJ said.
For instance, the complaint says, he made materially false representations regarding the risk profile of the investments.
"Camarda falsely represented, in sum and substance, that investments in the Camarda Funds were 'safe' or 'low-risk,' when, in fact, they were not," DOJ said, and "also misrepresented the diversification of the investments to induce the victims to invest."
Further, rather than investing those funds as promised in the Camarda Funds, Camarda diverted them to himself through wire transfers, using the "stolen funds to pay for personal expenses and luxury items, including plastic surgery, travel, jewelry and luxury goods," DOJ said.
"For example, one victim wired over $700,000 to Camarda, who then, after investing approximately $370,000 in the high-risk mining operation, misappropriated the other approximately $400,000 for himself, using the money to, among other things, pay off personal credit card bills," according to DOJ.
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