Former registered investment advisor Martin Ruiz was sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $11 million in restitution for defrauding more than a dozen of his elderly clients out of their retirement savings.
Ruiz, 46, who has lived in both New York City and Santa Fe, N.M., pled guilty to using his client list at Carter Bain Wealth Management, a registered investment advisor he founded in 2004, to conduct a Ponzi scheme beginning in March 2011, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,
The last Form ADV filed by Carter Bain in March 2021 stated the six-employee firm provided 486 individual and high net worth clients with financial advice for $61 million in assets under management.
Ruiz convinced more than a dozen of his clients to invest $10 million in “Ram Fund” through the purchase of limited partnership interests. But instead of investing the money in legitimate projects and real estate as promised, Ruiz appropriated $8 million of the fund by transferring the assets to himself through a series of other entities he controlled, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“(He) spent the vast majority of the funds on personal expenses, including the purchase of a home, rent payments on several apartments, and the payment of his personal credit card bills,” the statement said. “Ruiz also made multiple false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about his companies and investments in order to hide his fraudulent scheme.”
Ruiz was ordered to pay forfeiture in the total amount of $10,925,770. His firm is no longer in operation.