A former Ameriprise adviser was sentenced to five years in prison for stealing more than $1.2 million from at least ten clients, according to the Justice Department.
Dusty Sternadel pleaded guilty to wire fraud in January and was sentenced Friday by U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Texas federal court.
Sternadel joined the industry in 2011 with Edward Jones, according to its FINRA BrokerCheck profile. Based in Wichita Falls, Texas, she joined Morgan Stanley in 2015 and stayed for four years before joining Ameriprise in 2018.
Beginning in September 2019 and for the following three years, Sternadel would defraud several Ameriprise customers by tricking them into sending her funds or checks, which she would deposit into her accounts for personal use.
In one case, Sternadel ordered an interstate wire transfer of $26,916 from an unidentified victim's brokerage account to that client's personal checking account without the client's knowledge. Sternadel told the customer that Ameriprise accidentally initiated the transfer and instructed the customer to write a check from their bank account for that amount.
The client wrote Sternadel a check for $26,916, which the adviser deposited into her account, according to court documents detailing the charges against Sternadel.
According to prosecutors, most of Sternadel's victims were elderly, some of whom suffered from cognitive decline. The amounts stolen from each victim ranged from approximately $286,000 to about $40,000 (most of the amounts were reimbursed by Ameriprise, according to the DOJ).
O'Connor did not issue a fine as part of the sentence, but ordered Sternadel to forfeit all property he earned using $120,000 in stolen funds and a family home. O'Connor also ordered two years of supervised release after she completes her prison term, according to KFDX Fort Worth.
Sternadel was fired from Ameriprise in 2022 for “violating the company's policies regarding misappropriation of client funds,” according to FINRA records. The brokerage regulator banned him permanently a few months later.
According to KFDX, Sternadel's defense attorney, Russell Turkel, argued that the sentence was too harsh and reminded the judge that Sternadel had come forward to tell Ameriprise about what she had done.