A former investment counselor from Tarzana faces sentencing Thursday for stealing over $740,000 from clients, including a Major League Baseball player, in order to fund such personal expenses as tuition, travel and tickets to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Marc Frankel, 61, pleaded guilty in March to a single federal count of wire fraud.
From 2017 to 2020, Frankel used the account numbers on his client’s checking and brokerage accounts to set up automated payments on a personal credit card, he admitted.
The ball player, who is not identified in court papers, “told Frankel that he needed to focus all his attention on his baseball career and was relying on Frankel to manage his assets,” prosecutors wrote. Frankel had the authority to manage all of the athlete’s assets and various accounts.
Frankel used the credit card, which was in the name of his deceased mother, to buy tickets to Lakers games and cover his children’s college tuition payments, jewelry and other purchases, papers filed in Los Angeles federal court show.
Around May 2020, the ball player’s sports agency noticed unusual transfers from a separate account at the firm and began looking into all of the client’s accounts. When Frankel found out, he told the agency that he’d reviewed all transfers in the account he used to withdraw funds, falsely stating that nothing was suspicious.
The government is asking for a prison sentence of 41 months and restitution of $743,817.
“This kind of betrayal calls for a significant term of imprisonment,” prosecutors wrote in a memorandum.