LOS ANGELES – A former financial advisor with a lengthy disciplinary history was sentenced today to 168 months in federal prison for a real estate investment con that caused his clients – many of them elderly people who had invested their retirement savings – to lose more than $12 million.
Paul Ricky Mata, 58, a former resident of Upland who now lives in Oceanside, was sentenced by United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner, who also ordered him to pay $12,560,385 in restitution to his victims. Mata was remanded into federal custody at the hearing’s conclusion.
On July 19, Mata pleaded guilty to 17 felonies: 11 counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud, one count of making a false statement in a bankruptcy proceeding, one count of concealing assets in bankruptcy, and one count of making a false oath and accounts in bankruptcy.
From August 2008 to September 2015, Mata caused victims to invest in several of his businesses, including Secured Capital, Logos Real Estate, and other ventures. Mata failed to disclose his disciplinary history to his victims, including disciplinary actions taken against him by the states of Nevada and California, a one-year suspension and $10,000 fine imposed by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), and a three-year suspension by the Certified Financial Planner (CFP) Board stemming from various forms of misconduct, including omitting…
