By Shereen Siewert
A Wausau investment agent who defrauded clients of an estimated $1.9 million is facing decades in federal prison, after the U.S. Dept. of Justice filed criminal charges against him this week.
Anthony “Tony” Liddle, who owned Prosper Wealth Management in Rhinelander and Wausau, has already been barred from the industry. The allegations against him were the focus of a comprehensive WSAW investigative report in December. More than a dozen clients, many of them elderly, lost money in Liddle’s scheme.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a federal complaint that details Liddle’s actions from June 2019 through May 2022. In the complaint, the SEC alleges Liddle lied to clients, recommending they sell existing securities and enter “safer” investments – when in reality he sought liquid assets as the first step in his fraudulent scheme.
In one example cited, Liddle in December 2021 allegedly went to a nursing home to meet with a client, where he handwrote notes outlining her investment plan. In those discussions, he allegedly guaranteed the safety of a bond he knew to be high risk and promised that the client could rely on a monthly interest payment from the investment. Liddle then took a check for $110,000 – but never invested the woman’s money.
Liddle is also accused of directing clients to send money, either by wire or check, to his management firm to purchase new investments. But the firm did not…
