SEC Charges Advisor With Stealing Over $743K From Clients, Including MLB Player

What You Need to Know

An advisor made, or caused others to make, 241 unauthorized transfers totaling about $739,000 from an MLB player’s account.
The transfers were used to pay for charges on his dead mother’s American Express card.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former investment advisor representative with misappropriating over $743,000 in funds from a Major League Baseball player and another client to pay his personal expenses.

In a complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the SEC alleged that, between between December 2017 and June 2020, Marc J. Frankel, 61, of Tarzana, California, stole the money from two clients and used their funds to pay for personal charges on an American Express credit card in the name of his deceased mother.

Those charges allegedly included college tuition for Frankel’s kids, electronics, jewelry, sports tickets and travel, according to the complaint, which did not identify the clients by name, referring to them only as “Advisory Client #1” and “Advisory Client #2.”

“In total, Frankel made, or caused others to make, 241 unauthorized transfers totaling” about $739,052 from the account of Advisory Client #1, the MLB player, to his dead mother’s American Express card, the complaint said.

Frankel allegedly made a few small payments every month to evade detection and took additional steps to conceal his fraud, including falsely claiming the payments were for a credit card held by the baseball player’s personal assistant, according to the complaint.

The SEC’s complaint charged Frankel with violating the antifraud provisions of the Investment Advisers Act. The SEC is seeking civil penalties, disgorgement with prejudgment interest and a permanent injunction.

FINRA Suspension

Morgan Stanley was the first Financial Industry Regulatory Authority-affiliated firm Finkel  served as a broker for, from September 1997 until February 2002, according to his report at FINRA’s BrokerCheck website.