A man who was known as the “Wall Street Whiz Kid” pleaded no contest Tuesday to 18 felony counts stemming from an investment scam that netted nearly $250,000, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced.
David Peter Bloom, 62, is facing 10 years in state prison in connection with his plea to nine felony counts each of securities fraud and rand theft, along with admitting allegations that he engaged in a pattern of theft-related felony conduct and had two or more prior felony convictions, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
“David Bloom didn’t just lie. He stole from people who trusted him, while he treated their livelihoods as his own personal bankroll,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement announcing the plea. “Today’s no contest plea makes clear that those who exploit others for personal gain will face serious consequences.”
Bloom cultivated close relationships with the victims between 2021 and 2023, identified their vulnerabilities, exploited their trust and stole from multiple victims by convincing them to give him money to invest on their behalf, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Bloom used the victims’ money to support his own lavish lifestyle instead of investing the funds, and did not disclose to victims that he was barred for life by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission from acting as a broker and that he was not authorized to broker securities transactions, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Bloom pleaded guilty to mail and securities fraud in New York in 1988 and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison for convincing people to give him financial investments totaling more than $15 million, but he instead spent the money on himself, the Los Angeles Times reported earlier.
He pleaded guilty again in the late 1990s for bilking 10 people out of at least $50,000 in a similar scheme that targeted various restaurant employees.
Shortly after the case against Bloom was filed in Los Angeles County in 2023, then-District Attorney George Gascón called him “a predator.”
`He’s been preying on victims, vulnerable people all of his life, and he came to L.A. to do the same thing here,” Gascón told reporters then.
About $60,000 has been returned, the then-district attorney said in 2023.