A Massapequa-based financial advisor is being forced to pay clients upwards of $7 million after his company lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments.
Vincent Camarda, the founder and CEO of A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors, had been accused of misappropriating money from at least 20 clients. Arbitration documents from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority show that Camadra and James McArthur, A.G. Morgan’s former compliance officer, lost at least four arbitration cases brought by clients.
The SEC complaint about Camarda and his dealings with lending company Par Funding prompted an interim suspension of his Certified Financial Planner status in August 2022 by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, a nonprofit that sets and enforces requirements for the profession.
In April 2025, the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards permanently barred Camarda from CFP status following additional complaints made about the organization.
Camadra and MacArthur were then suspended indefinitely from working in the securities industry by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in October after allegedly failing to pay judgments given by arbitrators.
Schneps Media Long Island previously reported that 19 complainants who have filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority since May 2024 are seeking almost $21 million in damages, listing a wide range of grievances.
One of the complaints was filed by former client Kathleen McCauley of Farmingdale, who sued Camarda for $450,000 in July 2024, alleging that her retirement money was mismanaged.
McCauley, in her late 60s, had entrusted the sum to A.G. Morgan to secure her retirement. The lawsuit states that Camarda told her the investment would go into “rare earth minerals, limestone, and kiln dust” and would provide a consistent income of $3,000 per month.
McCauley retired in September 2023. Between February and December of that year, she received the promised sum, but the money stopped coming by January 2024, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims that in May 2024, McCauley requested that all of her money be returned. After correspondence with Camarda failed to provide a resolution, she decided to sue.
In a filing with the SEC dated March 2024, A.G. Morgan reported it had almost 400 clients. It is unclear how many clients may have been affected by the alleged wrongdoing.
A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dating back to 2022 implicated Camarda and MacArthur in a scheme to sell unregistered securities to clients for personal profits.
The SEC complaint states that the men raised more than $75 million from 200 investors, which they funneled into Par Funding. Allegedly, Camarda and McArthur pocketed $7 million for doing so.
A.G. Morgan was also in debt to Par for a time, something that the SEC said the company failed to disclose to investors.
In July 2020, the SEC placed Par Funding into receivership following an investigation that revealed the business was essentially a Ponzi scheme, meaning that returns to earlier investors were funded by new investors rather than from legitimate profits.
Par Funding’s former CEO, Joseph LaForte, was sentenced to more than 15 years of imprisonment in March for fraud.
