Raymond Erker, was found guilty of Fleecing 54 Victims Out of $9.3M

A former financial advisor in Ohio could be heading to prison for more than two decades after being found guilty of stealing millions of dollars from dozens of victims, according to news reports.

Raymond Erker was found guilty of 12 counts, including conspiracy to commit mail or wire fraud, money laundering and making false statements while under oath, Cleveland 19 reports.

The counts were related to a Ponzi scheme that cost 54 investors $9.3 million, according to the TV news network.

Erker invested some of the money in high-risk investments such as startups, without the investors’ knowledge, and spent the rest of the money on himself, Cleveland 19 writes.

To keep the scheme going, Erker and his co-defendants lured victims with bogus websites and call centers from office fronts in Delaware and Nevada, according to the news network.

Erker faces more than 20 years in federal prison, with his sentencing scheduled for July 7, Cleveland 19 writes.

Erker’s former associates, Tara Brunst and Kevin Krantz, previously agreed to a plea deal, and each faces up to six months in prison, according to the network.

Erker joined the financial services industry in 1999 and was registered with nine different firms, including Merrill Lynch and LPL Financial, before joining Allstate Financial as a broker in Avon, Ohio, and Safeguard Wealth Management as an investment advisor in Westlake, Ohio, both in 2012, according to BrokerCheck and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Investment Advisor Public Disclosure database.

Erker’s registration with Allstate ended the same year and with Safeguard in 2019, according to his record.

Erker has two disclosures on his record: a September 2010 employment separation from LPL over allegations that he borrowed money from a customer against firm policy, and an August 2018 revocation of his license to practice in Ohio over his alleged failure to disclose “material changes and disclosable matters” in Central Registration Depository documents, according to BrokerCheck.