Massapequa financial adviser Vincent Camarda pleads guilty to defrauding seniors out of millions

A Massapequa financial adviser pleaded guilty Friday to defrauding hundreds of clients, including seniors on Long Island, of millions of dollars in retirement savings.

Vincent J. Camarda, chief executive and founder of A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors LLC in Massapequa, was criminally charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of investment adviser fraud.

As part of his plea agreement with federal prosecutors, the 62-year-old Amityville resident agreed to pay at least $160 million in restitution, $6.6 million in forfeiture and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines. 

U.S. District Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury announced the felony charges against Camarda and accepted his guilty pleas during a one-hour hearing in federal court in Central Islip.

Camarda was released on a $1 million unsecured bond after prosecutor Adam R. Toporovsky confirmed that Camarda had voluntarily come forward to admit his fraudulent actions between 2017 and 2024.

Camarda faces up to 20 years in prison on the securities fraud count and five years on the investment adviser fraud count. He will be sentenced on Aug. 12, the judge said.

More than 430 clients of A.G. Morgan, many of them Long Islanders, lost their life savings by making investments based on the recommendations of Camarda and the firm's president and chief compliance officer, James E. McArthur, according to prosecutors and a civil lawsuit filed Friday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. 

The clients, who range in age from 36 to 83, have individually lost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, Newsday first reported in June.

Outside the courthouse on Friday, Pat Bucher, one of about 20 clients who attended the hearing, said she was glad that Camarda was being held accountable.

“He will probably rot in jail and die in jail,” said Bucher, 70, of Coram. “Now, we have to wait and see if we're going to get the money that we were promised."

Bucher said A.G. Morgan lost more than $200,000 of her retirement savings. As a result, she’s had to return to work and take out a home equity loan to pay her bills.

Camarda admitted his guilt but didn’t apologize to his clients in a brief statement that he read to the judge.

“I willfully failed to disclose the risks of the private investments that I recommended to my clients. I did this with the intent of defrauding them,” Camarda said.

He created and ran five investment funds with names such as AGM Capital, Windsor Capital and Omni Diversified. The funds were invested in a Ponzi scheme in Philadelphia, a mine in the West, and the Buzz’d Express Coffee shop in North Bellmore, according to court filings.

Camarda steered at least $138 million of the clients’ money into the private investment funds. An additional $1 million was diverted to Camarda’s personal bank account and used to pay for plastic surgery, vacations, jewelry and luxury goods, the filings show.

Camarda also failed to disclose his numerous conflicts of interest to the clients, including that he received commissions from the mine and that his son operates the coffee shop, the filings state.

After Camarda’s guilty pleas, Joseph Nocella Jr., U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, vowed to continue to pursue wrongdoing in the financial advisory industry.

“This defendant used a series of lies to lure clients, including elderly and other vulnerable individuals, into investing with him, all while enriching himself," Nocella said.

Camarda founded A.G. Morgan in 2014 after working at several financial services firms. He grew up on Long Island and earned a bachelor's degree in accounting at Hofstra University.

A.G. Morgan has largely ceased to operate since 2024, when dozens of its clients started filing complaints with the securities industry regulator, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

So far, FINRA arbitration panels have awarded 22 clients more than $16 million in judgments. Camarda and McArthur have been suspended from the industry for failing to pay the judgments, FINRA records show.

Camarda’s home and the A.G. Morgan office at 5260 Merrick Rd., which he owns, are both in foreclosure, according to state Supreme Court filings.

In nearly 60 emails sent to clients since September 2023, Camarda has indicated he doesn't have the funds to recoup their savings. He has said his Texas business associate, Anthony Zingarelli, lost the money and is attempting to raise funds to repay the clients and Camarda.

Zingarelli "expects to get approved by the end of the week, once he does, he gets funded shortly thereafter," Camarda wrote in a Feb. 26 email obtained by Newsday. 

After Friday’s hearing, Camarda’s attorney, Glenn Obedin, said of Zingarelli: “He might very well have had a major role in what happened here.”

The lawyer added, “We are going to do everything within our power to make [the A.G. Morgan clients] whole.”

Zingarelli’s attorney, Kenneth Miller, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But earlier this year, he said Zingarelli didn’t know any A.G. Morgan clients and never directly received investments from them.

McArthur, Camarda's business partner, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.