Missouri Advisor Admits Fraud After Wiping Out Investors’ Retirement Funds

An investment adviser from Ellisville pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal wire fraud charges that alleged he misrepresented how he invested more than $1 million from three clients.

William Glaser, 61, entered his plea in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. He faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced June 7.

Glaser solicited more than $1 million in investments that went to Paul Creager, whose St Louis County construction company, Everett Builders, was liquidated by creditors, prosecutors alleged.

From 2015 to 2016, Glaser falsely told his clients he had put his own money into Creager's company and failed to disclose that he was receiving large commissions out of his clients' funds, court documents say.

To liquidate his clients' investments so that they could go to Creager, Glaser helped set up self-directed IRAs on his clients' behalf, the documents say. After those accounts were set up, large portions of the clients' retirement portfolios were put into high-yield unsecured promissory notes with Creager's company. No payments were made on any of the notes.

In addition to prison time, Glaser could face a fine of more than $250,000 on each of the three counts. He also has to repay the victims.

In 2017, the Post-Dispatch profiled one Glaser client, Frank B. Steinberger, who said he lost more than $400,000 to Everett Builders.

Creager was sentenced to last May to five years in prison for bilking investors and stiffing subcontractors to finance luxury homes, cars and a 52-foot yacht and last month he pleaded guilty to new charges.

This case was investigated by the FBI and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

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