A former investment banker from Glen Cove was sentenced Wednesday in connection to a $1 million Ponzi scheme that targeted friends and acquaintances, officials said.
Rand Heckler, who had pleaded guilty to second-degree grand larceny and first-degree scheme to defraud in April of 2023, was sentenced to two-and-a-half to seven-and-a-half years in prison. He also received a civil judgement order for the restitution balance of $919,160 and forfeited $48,000 that was seized from his bank account, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly.
“This defendant executed a classic Ponzi scheme, promising his friends and neighbors high-value investments, using money from new investors to pay earlier ones, and ultimately stealing a total of more than $1 million from several victims,” Donnelly said in a news release about the sentencing.
“Heckler lived large off of his victims’ funds, paying for a country club membership, the mortgage on his home, and his daily living expenses,” Donnelly added. “Having a trusted financial advisor is essential to making safe and smart investments. Rand Heckler used the trust of friends and neighbors against them only to enrich himself.”
The DA’s office said that in 2015, Heckler encouraged people to invest in a hedge fund of stocks and securities that he was managing. The offer was only to be for Heckler’s closest 15 to 20 friends and associates.
Between December 2015 and January 2020, the investors wrote Heckler 24 checks, totaling $755,159. During that time, Heckler showed them statements with the names of the stocks and the hedge fund account’s current value. He also showed them false trade confirmations as proof that the stocks had been purchased, according to the DA’s office.
In January 2020, a friend’s son, who has power of attorney for his father, asked Heckler for $100,000 from his father’s account, part of which was for his children’s trust fund. In February 2020, after several weeks of delay, he received the $100,000 via a wire to his bank account and was told the money was from the sale of stock, the DA’s office said.
However, in May 2020 the DA’s office, after receiving the case from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, foundthat the money was wired directly from another victim in February, officials said. That victim, the defendant’s neighbor, went to the bank with the defendant in February 2020 believing she was wiring a $100,000 life insurance payment from her deceased husband into the hedge fund, when in fact, she was wiring the money directly to the first victim’s son.
Meanwhile, the defendant’s neighbor believed she would receive monthly dividend payments from her investment and did not know there was a problem until DA investigators contacted her, the DA’s office said.
During the investigation, at least two other victims were discovered to have been defrauded by the defendant in a similar manner, according to the DA’s office.
The defendant solicited additional victims by cold-calling people in other states and getting them to agree to invest. In total, he stolemore than $1 million from four victims, the DA’s office said.
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