Ex-Financial Advisor Pleads Guilty In $6M Fraud Scheme

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — A Virginia man who worked as a financial advisor in Maryland pleaded guilty Monday to participating in a scheme to steal more than $6 million from investors.

Michael Barry Carter, 47, of Potomac Falls, Virginia, made at least 53 unauthorized transfers from clients' accounts to his own accounts and used the stolen money to pay for a mortgage, credit card bills, country club membership fees and other personal expenses, U.S. Attorney Robert Hur's office said in a news release.

Carter stole at least $6.1 million but returned nearly $1.8 million of that money before his scheme was detected, federal prosecutors said. Some of the money Carter repaid came from other victims' accounts, prosecutors said.

Carter also embezzled more than $50,000 from a non-profit sports organization in Loudoun County, Virginia, but repaid the non-profit for its loss after the theft was discovered, according to Hur's office.

U.S. District Judge Paul Grimm in Greenbelt, Maryland, is scheduled to sentence Carter on Nov. 9 for his guilty plea to wire fraud and investment adviser fraud charges.

Carter's plea agreement calls for him to pay roughly $4.3 million, which prosecutors said was the net proceeds from his scheme.

"For over 12 years, Michael Carter perpetrated a brazen scheme that defrauded victim account holders whose investments he was supposed to protect," Hur said in a statement.

The unidentified financial institution that employed Carter fired him in July 2019, prosecutors said.