Former Ashtabula, Ohio Investment Advisor Sentenced for $4.8 Million Fraud

Steven M. Dettelbach, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, today announced that Thomas K. Fink, age 63 and a former resident of Ashtabula, Ohio, was sentenced to 41 months’ imprisonment following his conviction on one count of Mail Fraud. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable Sara Lioi in Case No. 1:10CR078-001.

During 2005 and 2006, Thomas K. Fink, then an investment advisor with AXA Advisors in Ashtabula, Ohio, left Northeast Ohio to start two investment businesses with his son and codefendant, Thomas C. Fink, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fink solicited those friends, family, and AXA clients with the largest investment portfolios to transfer their investments to TTF Strategic Growth Partners and Red Rock Capital Advisors, the investment businesses he created with his son. Fink represented that he would continue to actively manage their funds and that the funds would be used to purchase blue-chip stocks. However, Fink did not manage the investors’ funds. Instead, Fink allowed his son unfettered discretion over the management of the funds. In late 2007, Fink discovered that his son had looted the investor accounts to fund various Hollywood entertainment projects, including a motion picture called “Who’s Your Monkey.”

Notwithstanding the fact that Fink learned of his son’s theft in late 2007, he continued the fraud on his clients by sending investors quarterly account statements in January 2008 and again in April 2008 that represented that their accounts had increased in value. In July 2008, Fink sent a letter to his clients stating that he and his son were “still working on the calculations” for the previous quarter and that they intended to have the calculations finalized within the next few weeks. In truth and in fact, Fink knew that no such no effort was underway and that investor money had already been diverted.

The Honorable Sara Lioi determined that 30 investors were defrauded of $4,853,908.19 and further ordered that Fink pay this amount in restitution.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Bridget M. Brennan after an investigation by the Painesville Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cleveland Office of the United States Postal Inspection Service.