Ex-Wells Fargo, LPL advisor gets 3½ years for bilking elderly, disabled investors

A former Wells Fargo and LPL Financial investment advisor will spend more than three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to stealing more than $600,000 from clients.

Mario Rivero, an Elizabeth, New Jersey, advisor with 10 years of industry experience, was sentenced in federal court in Newark to 42 months behind bars and three years of supervised release for running a scam that deprived five clients of $626,478. Rivero, who was at Wells Fargo from 2010 to 2020, pleaded guilty on Feb. 2 to two counts of wire and securities fraud.

Rivero admitted to taking clients' money that he had ostensibly promised to put into investment funds and instead used it for travel, gambling and paying personal expenses. Authorities accused him of defrauding both elderly and disabled clients.

The wire and security charges he faced carried a maximum of 20 years in prison each and $6 million in fines in total. Rivero is separately the subject of a civil complaint the Securities and Exchange Commission filed in March 2022 over his part in the same scam. 

According to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's BrokerCheck database, Rivero was barred from the brokerage industry on June 4, 2021, and then barred by the SEC on March 28 this year. After leaving Wells Fargo in 2020, he worked for about eight months at LPL Financial.

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A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said, "At Wells Fargo we hold our employees to the highest ethical standards. Wells Fargo brought Mr. Rivero's conduct to the attention of law enforcement, and we have reimbursed affected clients."

Attempts to reach LPL Financial weren't immediately successful.