{"id":778094,"date":"2026-09-21T19:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778094\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T19:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:16:17","slug":"california-advisor-gets-nine-years-for-9-5-million-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778094\/","title":{"rendered":"California Advisor Gets Nine Years for $9.5 Million Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">A California-based financial advisor will spend nine years in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding at least 93 victims of more than $9.5 million, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Edwin Emmett Lickiss, Jr. was indicted in July 2025 for a long-running scheme spanning from 1998 through September 2024. Earlier this year, Lickiss, who is based in Danville, Calif., pleaded guilty to one count each of wire fraud and money laundering.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">According to court documents, Lickiss owned Foundation Financial Group and worked with clients throughout Northern California, Idaho and the broader United States. According to FINRA, he registered in 1977, with tenures at University Securities and Financial Network Investment Corp.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">Most recently, he registered with Investment Architects from 1995 through 2014. That year, FINRA suspended his license for failing to disclose tax liens (he claimed he had forgotten to inform FINRA and had paid the liens in full). However, Lickiss didn\u2019t tell clients he\u2019d been suspended and continued to work with them.<\/p>\n<p data-component=\"related-article\" class=\"RelatedArticle\">Related:<a class=\"RelatedArticle-RelatedContent\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wealthmanagement.com\/regulation-compliance\/former-cetera-advisor-admits-cherry-picking-trades\" target=\"_self\" data-discover=\"true\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Ex-Cetera Advisor Pleads Guilty to $6M Cherry-Picking Scheme<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">As part of the scheme, Lickiss told clients he\u2019d invest their money in exclusive, tax-free bonds offering return rates as high as 30%, and also said his own family had invested, that he charged no investment fees because he\u2019d profited so heavily, and that investors could redeem their principal at any time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">In reality, there were no bonds. Instead, Lickiss would take the funds from newer investors to pay earlier clients, feigning returns on their investments. He\u2019d also use clients\u2019 funds for personal expenses, including cash withdrawals, home renovations, travel and payments of cars, mortgages and credit card bills.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">In the indictment, the DOJ claimed that Lickiss supplied clients with fake promissory notes, including terms for the fictional bands. He\u2019d also try to convince investors to \u201creinvest\u201d the interest they\u2019d supposedly earned on the bonds (which, in reality, were the payments from newer investors).<\/p>\n<p class=\"ContentParagraph ContentParagraph_align_left\" data-testid=\"content-paragraph\">When some investors insisted on getting their money, Lickiss would offer excuses for why he couldn\u2019t pay, including family illnesses, banks withholding funds, or being under audit. The Securities and Exchange Commission<a class=\"ContentText-BodyTextChunk ContentText-BodyTextChunk_link\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/files\/litigation\/complaints\/2025\/comp26360.pdf\"> also filed a civil enforcement action<\/a> against the 77-year-old Lickiss last year related to the Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A California-based financial advisor will spend nine years in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding at least 93&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[84,4176,4174,4175,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-778094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}