A New York wealth manager who overbilled clients and diverted firm funds to inflate his salary by millions of dollars plans to plead guilty to fraud charges.
Richard T. Diver, co-founder and former chief operating officer at M&R Capital Management, was arrested in March. Prosecutors in Manhattan said he misused his position as manager of the firm’s payroll and billing to divert about $6 million to his own account.
Prosecutors on Monday asked a federal judge to postpone a court appearance scheduled for Tuesday, saying Diver intends to plead guilty at the next available opportunity.
Diver’s lawyers didn’t respond to emails seeking comment.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which also sued Diver, said he inflated his salary by hundreds of thousands a year between 2011 and 2018. To generate additional revenue to finance his scheme, Diver overbilled clients by around $750,000.
After M&R Capital’s chief executive officer received a complaint about the overcharges, Diver admitted to the overbilling. He said couldn’t pay the money back because he had “engaged in wild personal spending,” according to the SEC’s complaint. Diver was fired in December 2018.
Diver, who is in his early 60s, was charged with investment adviser and wire fraud. Prosecutors didn’t specify the exact charges to which he’d plead guilty.
New York-based M&R, which oversees $500 million, was founded by Diver and John E. Maloney in 1993. Diver owned 9% of the company, while Maloney focused on portfolio management and held the remaining 91%, according to the SEC’s March 2019 complaint.
The case is U.S. v Diver, 19-cr-533, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.