\n Edwin Lickiss earlier admitted that he defrauded at least 93 victims of over $9.5 million from 1998 through 2024.\n <\/p>\n
A former financial advisor<\/a> who ran a Ponzi scheme<\/a> in northern California for more than 25 yesterday was sentenced to nine years for the fraud, according to a statement<\/a> from the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n Edwin E. Lickiss Jr. earlier had pleaded to wire fraud and money laundering in connection with the fraud.<\/p>\n Lickiss, 78, of Danville, California, admitted that he defrauded at least 93 victims of over $9.5 million from 1998 through September 2024.<\/p>\n As part of the scheme, Lickiss said that he would invest victims\u2019 money in exclusive, tax-free bonds that offered rates of return up to 30%, according to the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n Lickiss also claimed that members of his own family had invested in the bonds, that he charged no investment fees because he had already profited so substantially, and that investors could redeem their money at any time.<\/p>\n According to the Department of Justice, the bonds did not exist. Instead, the former advisor, who had been suspended from the securities industry for four months by FINRA in 2014, funneled money from later victims to pay earlier investors, consistent with a Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n Lickiss was never again licensed to sell securities but continued his scheme. According to the federal government, he also siphoned victim funds to pay personal expenses, including cash withdrawals, home renovations, travel, and payments on vehicles, mortgages, and personal credit cards.<\/p>\n \u201cNine years,\u201d said Scott Silveer, a plaintiff\u2019s attorney representing investors who gave money to Lickiss. \u201cThis guy ripped off people for more than 20 years. We estimated he stole in the neighborhood of $20 million to $30 million.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFrom my clients\u2019 point of view, the punishment doesn\u2019t fit the crime,\u201d Silver said. \u201cKeep in mind that was a disciplined fraud for over 25 years. There is no punishment he doesn\u2019t deserve.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an ounce of justice, although he is an old man himself now,\u201d Silver added.<\/p>\n The fallout from Lickiss\u2019 scheme continues.<\/p>\n In what surprised some in the industry, Arkadios Capital, a\u00a0mid-sized broker-dealer in Georgia with 350 financial advisors, in June lost a FINRA arbitration lawsuit and was ordered to pay $2.7 million in damages to a claimant who was not a client of Arkadios but was the victim of\u00a0Lickiss\u2019 Ponzi scheme.<\/p>\n The twist? Michael Lickiss, an ex-Arkadios broker, worked side by side with his father in a suburb of San Francisco while Edwin Lickiss ran the fraud.<\/p>\n Michael Lickiss, the one-time Arkadios advisor at the center of the investor\u2019s claim, worked at Arkadios from the end of 2021 to the summer of 2024, according to his BrokerCheck profile, and was based in Danville, Calif.<\/p>\n Michael\u2019s father, Edwin Lickiss, never registered with Arkadios.\u00a0The attorney for the clients, Silver, said Arkadios has appealed the arbitrators\u2019 decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edwin Lickiss earlier admitted that he defrauded at least 93 victims of over $9.5 million from 1998 through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[124784,183974,183973,101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-467111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-advisor","tag-arkadios","tag-ponzi","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}