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Mario E. Rivero Jr., 39, of Red Bank, must serve out the entire term because there's no parole in the federal prison system.
Rivero, a former Wells Fargo agent and investment adviser representative who had an office in Elizabeth, convinced five clients to transfer investment funds to their personal bank accounts, federal authorities charged.
Many of his clients were elderly or disabled, they said, including two siblings who had eighth-grade educations, couldn't speak or read English and had what authorities described as "diminished capacity."
Rivero -- who'd known the pair for more than 10 years before becoming their financial advisor -- allegedly told them and others that their money would be invested in his mother's and friend's businesses.
He then directed the victims to transfer their money into multiple accounts that he didn't tell them he was personally involved with while telling them he was investing it in the stock market, investigators said.
Rivero instead used the funds to gamble, buy meals and make car payments, a complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark says.
Rivero had left Wells Fargo amid investigations that led, in part, to the New Jersey Bureau of Securities revoking his registration. Then came federal criminal charges, a March 2022 arrest at his Monmouth County home and a permanent SEC ban.
Rivero took a deal from the government rather than risk the outcome of a trial, pleading guilty to wire and securities fraud in U.S. District Court in Newark this past February.
U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo, who approved the plea arrangement, sentenced Rivero on Tuesday, Aug. 22, to three years of supervised release in addition to the prison term.
U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI and postal inspectors from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Newark with the investigation leading to the plea and sentencing, secured by Assistant U.S. Attorney Shawn Barnes, who's chief of his Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Narcotics Unit in Newark.
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