A man who was once known as the “Wall Street Whiz Kid” apologized Monday to his victims before being sentenced to 10 years in state prison for an investment scam that netted more than $244,000.
“I abused your trust … I am disgusted by my actions,” David Peter Bloom said in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom shortly before the sentence was imposed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kerry Bensinger.
He called the victims’ friendships “a gift” and said he takes “full responsibility for all of my transgressions,” noting that he became a “full-scale alcoholic” at one point.
Bloom, 62, pleaded no contest May 5 to nine felony counts each of securities fraud and grand 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.
Along with the prison term, the judge also ordered Bloom to pay more than $61,000 in restitution to three of the victims who were in court for his sentencing. A status conference is scheduled July 30 involving restitution to the remaining six victims.
One of the victims told the judge that Bloom “gained my trust and deliberately deceived me” and that she felt “betrayed by someone I considered a friend.”
Another of the victims said, “When I became his victim, I also became his nemesis … Every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie.”
In a statement last month announcing the plea, District Attorney Nathan Hochman said, “David Bloom didn’t just lie. He stole from people who trusted him, while he treated their livelihoods as his own personal bankroll.”
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 U.S. 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.
He entered his plea in the Los Angeles case last month during a break in the testimony of the first witness against him.
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 $63,000 has been returned, according to Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec.
Good that he is in prison.