A former Ameriprise advisor who conned elderly clients he met through church out of millions of dollars has been sentenced to 168 months in federal prison.
Paul Ricky Mata, 58, was handed the 14 year sentence Monday in the court of U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner. The Oceanside, California, man was also ordered to pay $12,560,385 in restitution to his more than 100 victims.
According to court documents, Mata ran a real estate scheme from August 2008 to September 2015 that allowed him to defraud clients of more than $12.5 million. It involved Mata convincing his victims to pour their savings into several of his businesses and then using their investments to live a comfortable life.
He also did so without disclosing his lengthy disciplinary history to the people he deceived. That included actions taken against him by the states of Nevada and California; a one-year suspension and $10,000 fine imposed by FINRA; and a three-year suspension by the Certified Financial Planner Board for misconduct.
Court documents said that many of Mata’s victims were fellow members of his congregation who invested their retirement savings.
“He prayed with them, professed to share values and beliefs with them, and he acted like they were his friends,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Moreover, many of his victims are currently retired, and/or were in the process of retiring when [Mata] advised them to enter into his risky investments based on false pretenses.”
Veteran securities attorney Bill Singer said even 14 years isn’t enough to make up for Mata’s crimes or deter other bad actors from following in his footsteps at some point down the line.
Singer, who worked as a regional attorney for FINRA predecessor the National Association of Securities Dealers, said criminals like Mata never believe they will be caught. For them, headlines of con artist advisors being sentenced to significant prison time is just another challenge for them to overcome.
“They say ‘I'm smarter than that,’ or ‘I know what they did wrong.’ (Mata) thought he was too smart. And when he got caught, he figured he would charm his way out of it,” Singer said. “He's probably more shocked than anybody that he's going to be doing hard time.”
The saddest part, Singer said, is that Mata’s victims had to wait more than a decade for some kind of resolution but have little chance of ever regaining what was taken from them. With a bankrupt felon as the person ordered to pay restitution, Singer wished the courts “good luck” in collecting.
“This all started in August 2008. We're almost 14 years from 2008, and 14 years later, Mr. Mata has lived a good life after he gutted the lives of his victims,” Singer said. “Assuming he lives long enough to finish out his jail term, he'll be in his 70s when he comes out. But his client’s lives are devastated, and there’s really not going to be any money that he's going to be able to come up with that's going to come close to the $12 million that he stole.”
Court documents said Mata’s scheme involved getting his clients to invest in a company called Secured Capital. Mata presented it as a real estate program that invested in “government-backed tax liens,” “asset-backed deed certificates,” and distressed commercial and residential properties.
Mata promised his victims annual return rates of 5% to 10%, court documents said. In reality, investments in Secured Capital had significant loss risks and did not turn a profit from 2011 onward.
Meanwhile, Mata used investor funds to pay for things like a $197,000 down payment on his personal residence in Upland, loans to himself and hundreds of thousands of dollars transferred into his personal bank accounts.
Mata also made false statements on bankruptcy court documents in October 2016, claiming that he had not filed for bankruptcy protection within the previous eight years. Mata had filed for bankruptcy in June 2010.
During his bankruptcy proceedings, Mata concealed some of his personal property — including a 2008 Mini Cooper automobile and a 2001 Jeep — from the government and from his creditors. During a November 2016 bankruptcy hearing, Mata lied when discussing the transfer of one of the vehicles and his Upland home to members of his family.
Monday’s sentencing is the latest in a long list of fines and punishments handed down to Mata over the past several years.
In 2015, the SEC filed a civil action against Mata and two business associates in connection to the real estate scam. Later that year, the SEC obtained a judgment against Mata that enjoined him from violating securities laws and ordered him to pay $11,748,831.
Also in 2015, the California Department of Business Oversight obtained a permanent injunction against Mata, as well as a $14 million restitution order and $6.3 million in civil penalties.
Victims received $1.65 million through an SEC-appointed receiver in 2017, and a California grand jury indicted Mata in 2019.
Ameriprise paid $100,000 in a settlement with three of the victims in 2019; a third-party online brokerage and a church that had hired Mata to teach financial classes resolved other client claims of damages, according to attorneys for the clients.
