Kimberly Pine Kitts, a 51-year-old Cape Cod investment advisor, has pled guilty in U.S. District Court to stealing more than $3 million from clients using an aggressive scheme of advisor fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.
The case against Kitts, a dually registered investment advisor formerly with Royal Alliance Associates of Palmer, Mass., was brought by the U.S. Attorney of the District of Massachusetts.
Kitts, who did business as Marquis Consulting, a firm she created and ran, allegedly stole funds from seven clients through 82 unauthorized withdrawals beginning in 2011, until a client asked her for account balances in 2017.
“Over the course of several years, she engaged in various schemes to defraud her clients,” said the state of Massachusetts in its complaint. The schemes included misappropriating client funds by forging signatures on withdrawal requests from variable annuities and wire authorizations from client brokerage accounts. Kitts also misled a client into withdrawing funds from a retirement account and directing them to Kitts’s bank account for the purpose of paying fictitious taxes, the lawsuit said.
Kitts allegedly used the money to fund a lavish lifestyle that included the purchase of several luxury vehicles and vacations.
Kitts tried to conceal the fraud, which her broker-dealer began to question, by falsifying account statements and even creating fake Schedule C tax forms, the state said.
Kitts also claimed to be a CPA and a Ph.D. in economics, neither of which is true, although she offered tax and business valuation services, the state said.
Kitts is scheduled to be sentenced March 20, 2019.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a similar complaint against the advisor in federal court.
The SEC is seeking a permanent injunction against Kitts and would require the disgorgement of any ill-gotten gains plus prejudgment interest and civil penalties.