A former Loves Park, Ill., financial advisor has been sentenced to four years and four months in federal prison for stealing nearly $1 million from elderly clients, according to a news release from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Naseem Salamah, 41, who pleaded guilty to the charges in October, also was ordered yesterday by U.S. District Judge Iain D. Johnston to pay restitution to the victims in the amount of $968,582.12.
In a separate civil case, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Salamah for allegedly stealing $968,582 from at least three elderly advisory clients by misappropriating their funds for his personal use. The thefts happened between August 2017 to May 2021, the complaint said.
Salamah, who operated a branch office of NinePoints Advisors and was the sole representative of the branch, targeted the three elderly clients because “he did not think they would pay too much attention to their brokerage account statements,” the SEC complaint said. He told the clients that he needed to move the money to diversify their assets. But once the clients signed the authorization documents, Salamah fraudulently altered them so that the funds would be transferred to a bank account that he controlled.
The SEC complaint said Salamah also forged the signature of the chief compliance officer of NinePoints Advisors to make it appear that the chief compliance officer had authorized the transfer of funds from the clients’ brokerage accounts. He then presented the altered authorization forms to the broker-dealer and requested the disbursement of funds in checks made payable to the bank account he controlled.
He spent the money on personal expenses, including dinners, vacations, leased luxury cars and private school tuition for his children, the complaint said.
Salamah presented bogus brokerage statements to one customer who questioned the loss in her account balance, and he also fabricated tax forms for another client when he was questioned about withdrawals from her brokerage account and taxes owed to the IRS, the complaint said.
Another clients’ daughter raised questions with the broker-dealer and NinePoints Advisors in May upon learning of the significant withdrawals from her mother’s brokerage account. Salamah was fired as a result and was denied access to his clients’ accounts, the SEC said. He was barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in September.
Salamah began his career with MetLife Securities in 2006 and moved to Morgan Stanley in 2010 before joining NinePoints Advisors in 2013, according to BrokerCheck.