Maple Grove investment advisor pleads guilty to defrauding clients out of $2 million

A Maple Grove man who was accused of defrauding people out of more than $2 million has pleaded guilty.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said 33-year-old Isaiah Leslie Goodman, a registered investment advisor, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud.

According to the allegations, Goodman owned Becoming Financial Group, Inc., and Becoming Financial Advisory Services, LLC. He also owned and operated MoneyVerbs, which claimed to provide financial guidance through an app. Through those businesses, Goodman said he’d provide financial planning and investment advice for clients, and purported to put clients’ savings and retirement funds into financial accounts that he claimed were safe, secure and profitable, prosecutors said.

Maple Grove investment advisor charged with defrauding clients out of over $2.2M

The attorney’s office said, from at least 2017 through November 2020, Goodman lied to prospective and existing clients about his use of their money, the security and profitability of the accounts he claimed to administer on their behalf and the status and performance of their funds. He also provided clients with false and fraudulent information, including investment proposals and bogus online account information, prosecutors said. He then kept all the money or provided investors with refunded payments that were late, incomplete or both, or that were refunds actually funded by other clients’ money.

Instead of doing as he said, Goodman is accused of placing his clients’ money into bank accounts he controlled, misappropriating the funds for his own use and benefit by purchasing and remodeling his home, buying and building a $1.69 million home in Plymouth, buying two vehicles and other personal items, and funneling around $700,000 to his other business, MoneyVerbs.

His sentencing is scheduled for June 29.