Former sales representative sentenced to more than three years for stealing $1 million from a customer

On May 3, 2024By Vaseline

A former registered representative at Suntrust and M&T was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for stealing more than $1 million from an elderly client over 17 years.

Eddy Ray Blizzard pleaded guilty to bank fraud in Maryland federal court in late December and was given a harsher maximum sentence of 30 years. FBI Special Agent William J. DelBagno said Blizzard deserved “every year” he would spend behind bars.

“The victim worked hard all his life, saved for his retirement and built a legacy for his loved ones,” he said. “Blizzard not only stole a million dollars, but also took away their security and peace of mind.”

According to FINRA records, Blizzard began his career at UBS in 2001 before moving to Allfirst and then M&T in 2003, where he remained for 11 years before moving to Suntrust in 2014. Suntrust fired him in 2017.

Blizzard’s scheme targeted an unnamed elderly investor nicknamed “RM” in court documents. RM was a retired air conditioning technician who had worked for a Baltimore-based company for thirty years.

Six months after his retirement, RM decided to invest his retirement funds to create a legacy for his grandchildren and entered M&T, where he maintained savings accounts. He soon met Blizzard, who started working at M&T shortly after RM started investing and became his advisor.

Blizzard asked RM if he would continue working with him if he became independent. He said it would be some time before he would have his own office and continue working out of the M&T office. But Blizzard never became an independent financial advisor.

Once a month, RM drove an hour from his home in Chester, Maryland, to meet Blizzard in his car in the parking lot of his M&T office; these meetings lasted 30 to 45 minutes and continued for years, with Blizzard never revealing why they met in his car and not in an office.

Blizzard started asking RM for blank checks, with the customer recalling giving the advisor about 15-20 signed blank checks. Unbeknownst to RM, Blizzard used these checks for his own purposes. (Evidence later found showed that he used the money for property taxes, construction, boat payments, and down payments on a new home.)

At least a dozen times, RM went to his local bank to withdraw money, only to be told there was not enough money in the account. RM called Blizzard, who told him to wait a day or two, but didn’t ask why there was no balance in his accounts.

In 2019, things came to a head when RM was preparing for a family vacation but the account had insufficient funds. RM tried calling Blizzard for a week with no answer before going to his house and knocking on the front and back doors.

While there, RM received a call from Blizzard, who said neighbors had called him to complain about the noise. Blizzard said the client had run out of all his money, attempted suicide and been hospitalized. (He later admitted that no suicide attempt had been made.)

In addition to stealing RM’s retirement funds, Blizzard also stole his Social Security income. RM also believed that Blizzard was handling the payment on his mortgage, but in the fall of 2019, the man’s home was declared foreclosed because the advisor had failed to make the mortgage payments.

According to the Justice Department, RM died the following March at the age of 75.