A former dually registered advisor for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court yesterday to defrauding his clients in a decade-long, $7 million Ponzi scheme, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Shawn Edward Good of Wilmington, N.C., who also was an advisor with Wells Fargo and Charles Schwab, faces up to 30 years in prison for the convictions on wire fraud and laundering charges, the agency said.

“This investment advisor breached the trust of at least a dozen clients, taking over $7 million–money he promised would go to low-risk investments—and used it to line his pockets, buying real estate, luxury cars, and vacations,” Michael Easley, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said in a prepared statement. “This decade-long scam has finally come to an end.”

Good’s attorney, Joseph Zeszotarski of Gammon, Howard & Zeszotarski in Raleigh, N.C., did not return a call for comment by press time. Morgan Stanley declined to comment.

From 2012 through February 2022, Good defrauded his clients by enticing them to invest in real estate development projects and tax-free municipal bonds that he described as low risk and returning between 6% and 10% on three- or six-month terms, according to the original complaint filed last month in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Southern Division.

To fund these so-called investments, Good had some of his clients open liquid asset lines of credit secured by their Morgan Stanley accounts and then transfer those funds first to their personal bank accounts and then to Good’s personal bank account, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. He directed other clients to wire him money from their personal accounts.

Good raised about $7.25 million from 12 clients this way, prosecutors said. Instead of investing the money as promised, he used client money to repay earlier investors and to buy his house in Wilmington, a condo in Florida and a fleet of luxury vehicles including a Mercedes Benz, a Porsche Boxster, a Tesla Model 3, an Alpha Romeo Stelvio and a Lexus RX350. In addition, some proceeds went to travel to Paris, Las Vegas, Cinca Terra in Italy and Jackson, Wyo., prosecutors said.

Good began his career in 1990 as a broker for Charles Schwab in San Francisco, according to BrokerCheck. From 2004 to 2012, he was a broker with Wells Fargo Advisors in Wilmington, N.C., and then went to Morgan Stanley. Aside from a small customer dispute over an annuity in September 2011 that was denied, Good had no disclosures until April 13 of this year, when clients started complaining about misappropriation of funds, according to the Finra website.

Good was fired from Morgan Stanley in early March. Finra permanently disbarred him on April 14, according to BrokerCheck.