Ex-Broker Who Used Client Funds to Pay Taxes, Buy Race Car Items Gets 10-Year Sentence
A former broker who was charged in 2021 with multiple counts of fraud after he used client money for his own benefit, including to make “large race car-related purchases” and to pay his own taxes has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison, according to court records and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio.
In addition to sentencing Thomas Brenner, 60, of Orrville, Ohio, to 125 months imprisonment on Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Donald C. Nugent ordered Brenner to pay $3.5 million in restitution and serve three years of supervised release.
A federal grand jury had returned a seven-count indictment against Brenner and, as part of a plea agreement, he pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, mail fraud, wire fraud, securities fraud, and engaging in a monetary transaction in property derived from criminal activity.
The defendant was a financial broker and president of First American Securities in Orrville. He was registered as a broker with that firm from 2011 to 2016, according to his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website.
Medical Lab Scam
According to the indictment, in March 2015, the defendant and others allegedly conspired together to recruit the defendant’s clients to invest in United RL Capital Services, a company that purportedly financed medical laboratory developments.
It was alleged that Brenner and “Person-1” solicited investors over the phone, via letters and in person.
The two of them misrepresented material information to the clients, such as statements about their money being used to finance medical laboratory developments, that they would receive their money back with interest after three years, and that United RL was a safe firm to invest in or safer than other investments, according to the indictment.
Clients Conned Out of IRA Funds
Some investors, allegedly at the defendant’s and Person-1’s encouragement, removed money from their IRAs to invest in URL and Brenner and Person-1 misrepresented that doing so wouldn’t result in tax penalties, the indictment said.
