A former Wisconsin broker who duped clients out of $1.9 million has been sentencecd to eight years in federal prison for wire fraud and money laundering, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin.
Anthony B. Liddle, 41, of Wausau, Wis., pleaded guilty to the charges on February 24. He was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson on Friday.
In selecting a sentence of eight years, Peterson said he hoped to provide some measure of justice for the victims, whom he described as “hard-working people who accumulated their wealth over a long period of time,” the U.S. Attorney's Office release said, adding that the judge called Liddle’s crimes "monstrous" because he "ruthlessly manipulated and stole from people that he knew well.”
Between June 2019 and August 2022, Liddle operated Prosper Wealth Management, a now-defunct Wisconsin limited liability company in Wausau. Prosecutors said Liddle's investment scheme victimized at least 13 of his clients, many of whom he had befriended.
A civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission said Liddle misrepresented the risk of GWG L Bonds and other similar investments, and led his clients to believe that the security was lower risk than their existing investments. Based on his misrepresentations, the complaint said, some clients were induced to sell, or directed Liddle to sell, existing securities holdings.
At Liddle’s direction, clients sent “their newly available funds, including some who held funds not managed by PWM, to PWM directly, under the guise that Liddle would use the funds to purchase the new, allegedly lower-risk security on the clients’ behalf,” the SEC compliant said.
Liddle, however, never invested the funds. He instead stole the clients’ money and spent it on his businesses and on personal expenses, including travel. In total, he stole $1,937,817.92 from his clients, prosecutors said.
Liddle covered up his fraud with fabricated statements that led many of the defrauded clients to believe they were receiving regular and reliable returns from their investment portfolios. But their principle was gone and what little interest they received was a lie to cover Liddle’s theft, the complaint said.
Liddle’s lies were exposed by one of his advisory clients in May 2022. Even then, “he attempted to cover his theft by drafting promissory notes between his victims and PWM, backdating the documents and forging his clients’ signatures,” the complaint said. He falsely told the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions during the investigation that each of the stolen investments were loans to him, the SEC said.
Liddle entered the industry in 2008 with Eliason Financial Group. He moved to Western International Securities Inc., in 2012 and left for Landolt Securities Inc. in 2020.
He was barred by Wisconsin on May 3, 2022. Three weeks later, he was “permitted to resign” from Landolt. And in June 2022, he was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.