LITTLE ROCK (KFSM) — A former Arkansas running back has filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against his former financial adviser.
Darren McFadden, current running back with the Dallas Cowboys, has accused Michael Vick, a former financial representative at Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., of misappropriating at least $15 million in funds, according to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday (June 7).
The former Razorback entered into an agreement in 2008 with Ameriprise for the purpose of being provided financial management and valuable business service, the lawsuit stated.
In 2010, Vick left Ameriprise to focus on being McFadden’s financial adviser and business manager, according to the lawsuit. McFadden all of his financial affairs and safeguard of his earning to be closely and competently monitored by Vick.
Years after McFadden fired Vick though, the NFL running back discovered that his former representative, “through gross incompetence, self-dealing, and outright theft, had managed to conceal from [McFadden] that Vick had either stolen, misappropriated or lost approximately $15 million of [McFadden’s] funds from [McFadden’s] financial accounts,” the lawsuit stated.
The lawsuit also claimed that Vick has claimed sole ownership and dominion over a business that he started with McFadden’s funds, while refusing McFadden access to any documentation or information regarding the business. McFadden believed that Vick invested approximately $3 million of the running back’s funds into the business without paying any return since 2010, the lawsuit stated.
McFadden’s attorney Simran Singh, of Singh, Singh and Trauben, LLP, said that Vick was terminated in the middle of 2015, shortly after the running back discovered the finance errors.
Singh said that Vick will have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit after it has been served.
McFadden accused Vick of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and professional duty of care, conversion, breach of contract, fraud by wire, unlawful accounting and acting as broker-dealer without being registered as a broker-dealer, according to the lawsuit.
