FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	CONTACT: Lauren Horwood
January 3, 2012	PHONE: (916) 554-2706
www.usdoj.gov/usao/cae	usacae.edcapress@usdoj.gov
Docket #: 2:11-CR-481 JAM

            SACRAMENTO, Calif. — United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced that Thomas Brown Hammond, 62, of Fair Oaks, pleaded guilty today to theft from an employee pension plan.

            This case is the product of an investigation by the Placer County Sheriff’s Department and the United States Secret Service. Assistant United States Attorney Kyle Reardon is prosecuting the case.

            According to the plea agreement, Hammond was a registered securities representative and investment advisor who worked in Fair Oaks. Between December 2010 and February 23, 2011, Hammond began stealing money from his clients. Some of this money came from employee benefit plans, employee pension benefit plans, or connected funds.

            In executing his scheme, Hammond advised clients to invest money in a “private portfolio” that he maintained. He claimed that this portfolio earned a steady interest rate that exceeded the rate that the clients were earning in their current investments. These statements were not true. Hammond took the money that the clients gave him to invest in the fraudulent private portfolio and deposited it into a standard business account. He then withdrew this money and used it for his personal expenses.

            Hammond did not provide regular documentation to his defrauded clients showing the status of the investments in the private portfolio. However, when asked, Hammond would sometimes provide bogus updates of the clients’ investments, either orally or through one-page account summaries. When one client asked to cash out $58,000, Hammond said that they would have to wait seven days before the money would be available. One week later, Hammond returned $48,000 to that client. The money that he used to pay that client was stolen from a second victim. In total, Hammond stole $546,652.29 from his clients.

            Hammond is scheduled to be sentenced by United States District Judge John A. Mendez on April 10, 2012. He faces a maximum statutory penalty of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine, and a three-year term of supervised release. Hammond may also be ordered to make restitution to his victims. The actual sentence, however, will be determined at the discretion of the court after consideration of any applicable statutory factors and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of variables.

####

 

Return to Top