A former investment advisor charged with stealing more than $600,000 from an elderly client was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in prison.
Matthew O. Clason, 40, a Cheshire resident, will be on supervised release for two years after he serves his sentence.
U.S. District Court Judge Michael P. Shea additionally ordered Clason to pay $639,580 in restitution.
Clason, who pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in the case this past May, is free on bond and must report to the Federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence Feb. 28.
At the time of the offense, Clason was an investment advisor and a registered representative of Lincoln Financial Advisors Corporation of Indiana, and then LPL Financial LLC of California, court documents show.
He began providing investment services to a 73-year-old female New Britain resident in 2015, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. The woman had at least five investment accounts with Clason, and in January 2018, Clason and the woman opened a joint bank account. The pair had become friends and Clason would drive her to appointments and run errands for her.
Prosecutors say Clason transferred more than $668,000 from the victim’s investment accounts into the joint bank account over a two year period, from 2018 to August 2020.
Without the woman’s knowledge or consent, he then withdrew more than $621,000 in cash from the bank account for his personal use. Clason also transferred $5,000 directly from the joint bank account to his personal bank account, and made two transfers from the joint bank account to pay his personal credit card, according to the government.
Attorney Frank Riccio of Bridgeport, who represents Clason, had asked for a sentence of supervised release and a period of home confinement.
“Mr. Clason knows that greed got the best of him,” Riccio wrote, in a pre-sentencing memorandum. “He wants the victim to know how remorseful he is and that if he could go back in time, he would.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather Cherry, however, had asked for a significant term of imprisonment.
“Clason, motivated by pure greed, took advantage of his position as a trusted financial advisor to misappropriate money from an unsuspecting client,” Cherry wrote, in the government’s pre-sentencing memorandum to the court.
According to Cherry, Clason inappropriately established a personal relationship with the elderly woman by helping her with errands, driving her to appointments, and generally being her companion. Based on his actions, the woman “mistakenly believed that she could trust and rely on him to safeguard her savings.”
“For more than a year, Clason used (the woman’s) investment account like it was his own personal ATM machine,” Cherry wrote.
The victim also wrote in a statement to the court, indicating that she is “not only disgusted but broken” by what happened.
“Mr. Clason was someone I thought I could trust to keep me and my money safe,” the woman wrote. “He kept telling me I have nothing to worry about and that everything was doing great, I am prepared. The truth is I was lied to so he could steal from me. He used my trust in our friendship and his word to rip me off and destroy me.”
In 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency civil action in U.S. District Court against Clason to freeze his assets. In this separate civil case this week, the hold on Clason’s assets were lifted to the extent needed to allow him to pay the ordered restitution.
The U.S. Justice Department has established a National Elder Fraud Hotline to provide services to seniors who may be victims of financial fraud. The toll-free number is 833-FRAUD-11.
Contact Michelle Tuccitto Sullo at msullo@newhavenbiz.com.
