Maple Grove Investment Advisor Charged With Defrauding Clients Out Of More Than $2.2 Million

 United States Attorney Erica H. MacDonald today announced a felony information charging ISAIAH LESLIE GOODMAN, 33, of Maple Grove, Minn., with one count of mail fraud. GOODMAN will make his initial appearance before a Magistrate Judge in U.S. District Court at a later date.

According to the allegations in the information, GOODMAN was a registered investment advisor and broker who owned Becoming Financial Group, Inc., and Becoming Financial Advisory Services L.L.C. GOODMAN also owned and operated MoneyVerbs, a business that claimed to provide customers with financial guidance through an internet-based app. Through Becoming Financial Group, Inc., and Becoming Financial Advisory Services L.L.C., GOODMAN represented that he would provide his clients with financial planning and investment advice, including purporting to place his clients’ savings and retirement funds into financial accounts that GOODMAN claimed were safe, secure, and profitable.

According to the allegations in the information, from at least 2017 through November 2020, GOODMAN defrauded at least 23 of his investor clients out of approximately $2,250,123. As part of his scheme to defraud, GOODMAN lied to prospective and existing clients about his use of their money, the security and profitability of the financial accounts he claimed to administer on their behalf, and the status and performance of their funds. During in-person sales pitches or through email messages and phone calls, GOODMAN provided clients with materially false and fraudulent information, including investment proposals and bogus online account information. GOODMAN also misrepresented to clients that their funds would be returned to them upon request, when, in fact, GOODMAN either kept all of the money or provided investors with refunded payments that were late, incomplete, or both, or that were refunds actually funded by other clients’ money.

According to the allegations in the information, instead of placing his clients’ money into safe and secure investment accounts, GOODMAN deposited client funds into bank accounts he controlled. GOODMAN misappropriated his clients’ funds for his own use and benefit by, among other things, purchasing and remodeling his home in Maple Grove, using funds for the purchase and construction of a $1.69 million home in Plymouth, buying a 2019 Ford Expedition and a 2020 Ford Explorer, funneling approximately $700,000 toward his other business, MoneyVerbs, and paying for personal expenditures, including a hot tub, a cruise, fitness club memberships, jewelry, and credit card payments.

This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI and the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew S. Ebert is prosecuting the case.

The charges contained in the information are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

Defendant Information:

ISAIAH LESLIE GOODMAN, 33

Maple Grove, Minn.

Charges:

• Mail fraud, 1 count