'The lies just continued': How a Long Island investment firm allegedly ghosted retirees after losing millions

Every few weeks, another email arrives in the inbox of a retired couple in Islip Town.

The subject lines change.

The promise doesn’t.

“The funds will be wired to us within 1 to 2 business days.”

That message was dated Oct. 17, 2023.

Five months later, on March 27, 2024, another message read: “We can expect to have the money by the end of next week, which means we will be receiving your principal as well as interest at that time.”

Last week, yet another email landed in the couple’s inbox, saying a plan to raise money by selling securities in Greece would be executed “very shortly.”

Sitting at their dining room table, the couple, who requested anonymity, leafed through printouts of dozens of emails from their financial planner, A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors LLC in Massapequa. All the messages were signed by the firm’s chief executive and founder, Vincent J. Camarda, and were sent after the couple stopped receiving monthly interest payments of between 9% and 12%, according to financial statements.

The couple, who are in their late 60s and early 70s, said they fear their life savings of nearly $600,000 have been lost.

“We’ve received nothing,” said the wife, who worked in government before retiring. “Why is he stringing us along?”

The emails, sent between September 2023 and this month, are part of a pattern that has stretched for nearly 2½ years, with clients of A.G. Morgan receiving updates about every two weeks from Camarda. Most outline plans by his business associate in Texas, Anthony Zingarelli, to recoup the money, based on a review of nearly 60 messages by Newsday.

A.G. Morgan and its principals — Camarda and firm president James E. McArthur — are accused in federal and state lawsuits and complaints to securities industry regulators of running a Ponzi scheme that resulted in losses of hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for clients, most of whom are retired. The firm and the men allegedly downplayed the risk of the investment funds where clients' money was deposited and didn't disclose conflicts of interest with some of the fund operators.

Camarda, McArthur and A.G. Morgan have denied the allegations in court filings and arbitration proceedings. 

The filings show roughly 400 A.G. Morgan clients had their retirement savings steered into investment funds tied to Philadelphia lender Par Funding, later exposed by federal regulators as a Ponzi scheme.

After Par Funding collapsed in 2020, about $60 million of the clients’ money was transferred to Millennium Holdings Limited LLC, a Wyoming-based company led by Zingarelli, who is 50 and lives in Irving, Texas, according to the filings.

“We invest in funds that invest with Millennium Holdings,” Camarda said three years ago in a deposition for a lawsuit brought against him, McArthur and A.G. Morgan by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Zingarelli previously held top jobs at Par Funding, and a court-appointed receiver later described him as “a corporate insider who facilitated and perpetuated the underlying fraud scheme.”

Zingarelli, through his attorney, declined to comment for this story.

In the emails, Camarda repeatedly suggests that whether A.G. Morgan clients get their money back depends solely on Zingarelli’s ability to raise funds through Millennium Holdings and related ventures. Newsday found no evidence that any of the funding plans described in the messages resulted in payments to the clients, who range in age from 56 to 83.

“I cannot express enough how excruciatingly painful this has been for all of us, and I am deeply sorry that we are in this position,” Camarda wrote in a Sept. 12, 2024, email, adding that Zingarelli’s application for a $1 billion loan “is about to fund.”

Other messages describe efforts to obtain a line of credit from a bank in Malaysia, a sale of a company to a buyer in Singapore and a mining venture in the United States.

The most ambitious plan, first mentioned in that Sept. 12 email, called for $3.5 billion to be raised in Europe through loans and the sale of securities, with most of the money to go to another Zingarelli company, Tanoak Capital Partners in Dallas.

The frequency and content of Camarda’s emails are unusual, legal experts told Newsday.

“At this stage of the game, guys who have lost all their clients’ money usually fall away into obscurity,” said Mark W. Guthner, an associate professor of financial practice at Rutgers Business School and a former strategist at Banc of America Securities. 

“Perhaps he’s trying to soothe his conscience or keep his clients from bringing an action against him. Whatever the case, this isn’t normal behavior,” Guthner said.

Anthony Michael Sabino, a Mineola securities attorney, agreed, adding that Camarda’s repeated written assurances that clients’ money will be returned could increase his legal exposure.

“If he’s lying, he can get sued,” said Sabino, who also teaches at St. John’s University in Queens. “If there’s a pending investigation by the SEC or Department of Justice, the emails will be looked at and new charges could be brought.”

For Pat Bucher, a 70-year-old retiree from Coram who invested more than $200,000, the emails lost their credibility years ago.

“They were providing updates, but it was a repetitive story,” she said. “The lies just continued.”

A pipeline to a Ponzi scheme

A.G. Morgan began doing business with Par Funding around 2016 and raised more than $75 million from investors between 2017 and 2020 through the sale of unregistered securities from Par Funding, according to a 2022 lawsuit filed against A.G. Morgan and its principals by the SEC in federal court in Central Islip. 

Days after the SEC accused Par Funding of operating as a Ponzi scheme, the lender was placed in receivership. Its chief executive was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for defrauding investors of more than $400 million.

Camarda testified in the deposition that he transferred client funds from Par Funding to Zingarelli’s Millennium Holdings “so that our clients could continue to be paid their principal back and their interest.”

Nearly three years ago, a federal judge authorized the Par Funding receiver to pursue Zingarelli for assets tied to Par Funding. No lawsuits appear to have been filed, and the receiver’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.

Zingarelli was not available for an interview, said his lawyer, Kenneth Miller, who also declined an interview request.

But in federal court in Central Islip last month, Miller told a judge that while Zingarelli had a business relationship with A.G. Morgan, he did not know its clients and never directly received investments from them.

"He doesn't conduct business in New York State," Miller said during a hearing in a fraud suit filed by an A.G. Morgan client against the firm, its principals and Zingarelli. 

The suit was brought by Kathleen McCauley, 69, of Farmingdale, who alleges her $450,000 retirement nest egg was not invested at all but transferred among accounts controlled by Camarda, McArthur and Zingarelli.

The funds were deposited into an account at First National Bank of Long Island that was controlled by Camarda and McArthur, according to bank records obtained under subpoena by her attorney. The money was transferred immediately to a Texas account controlled by Zingarelli, then moved back to five accounts in New York controlled by Camarda and McArthur before finally being sent to Meridian Bank in Pennsylvania.

McCauley’s attorney, Timothy J. Dennin, alleges some of the funds were used to pay payroll.

“My client’s money was not invested in anything but transferred to accounts controlled by defendants Camarda, McArthur and Zingarelli — and used for these defendants’ own nefarious purposes,” the attorney said.

Camarda, McArthur and Zingarelli have denied the allegations.

The fallout continues

State Supreme Court filings show Camarda’s home in Amityville and the A.G. Morgan office building in Massapequa, which he owns, are in foreclosure.

Also, arbitration panels have awarded more than $16 million to 22 former clients — awards that A.G. Morgan, Camarda and McArthur haven't paid. As a result, the men have been suspended from the securities industry.

Camarda, McArthur and their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Even after foreclosure proceedings began and arbitration awards went unpaid, Camarda has continued sending his clients updates every few weeks describing new overseas financing plans that he said would soon repay them.

In Islip Town, the retired couple said the emails once had a ring of truth because they contained details — foreign banks, mining ventures, regulatory approvals — that could be checked with online searches.

“The stories are so outrageous,” said the husband, who’s looking for a job, “but we had no evidence that they weren’t true.”  

He said he and his wife have long hoped Camarda would follow through on his promise to sue Millennium Holdings, which was first mentioned in a March 6, 2024, email. No lawsuit appears to have been brought.

The wife, who has returned to work, said the ordeal has been a nightmare.

“We just want our money back,” she said.