An elderly couple from Wantagh, fearing they’ve lost most of their retirement savings, is suing a Massapequa financial adviser for allegedly recommending they place $202,000 in risky investments.

The lawsuit, filed June 12, is the latest blow to the credibility of A.G. Morgan Financial Advisors LLC and its owner, Vincent J. Camarda, adding to a growing web of legal and regulatory troubles surrounding them. Since 2022, the Massapequa-based firm and Camarda have been accused of fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and faced nearly 20 customer complaints to a financial services regulator.

Jerry and Sheila Dorfman allege that A.G. Morgan and Camarda urged them to put most of their Individual Retirement Account money into two investment funds in 2019 and 2021.

The AGM Capital Fund I and Windsor Capital Fund II — both described as private equity funds — were created and managed by Camarda, according to the suit.

Jerry Dorfman, 90, is a retired sales manager for home heating oil provider Petro Oil. His wife, Sheila, 86, suffers from late-stage dementia, states the suit, which was filed in State Supreme Court in Nassau County. 

The Dorfmans said they were promised monthly payments in return for buying promissory notes issued by the AGM Capital and Windsor Capital funds. The payment amount isn't disclosed in the suit. 

The couple also said they were told the initial investment of $202,000 would be returned earlier this year, according to the suit.

Those monthly payments reportedly stopped in 2023, and Camarda allegedly refused to return the couple’s "retirement nest egg," the suit states.

The couple, through their attorney, John E. Lawlor, declined to be interviewed for this story. Lawlor told Newsday that he "doesn’t comment on pending litigation."

A.G. Morgan and Camarda didn't respond to several calls and voicemails from Newsday seeking comment. The firm's website was down as of Tuesday evening. 

No attorney is listed as representing A.G. Morgan and Camarda in the couple’s suit, according to court filings.

Three lawyers who represent the defendants in the SEC case didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The Nassau lawsuit alleges that the couple knew little about investing and relied on Camarda to recommend sound financial strategies. Instead, Camarda advised placing the couple's IRA money into funds that "were not safe and were wholly unsuitable and inappropriate to invest [the couple’s] retirement funds in," said Lawlor, the attorney.

The couple's allegations, in some instances, mirror the complaints of Camarda's other clients.

Camarda's refusal to respond to investigators looking into the complaints led last month to the permanent loss of his financial planner certification.

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc., which issues the certification, said Camarda failed to cooperate with its investigation of customer complaints. In one complaint, the board said, clients alleged Camarda "misappropriated their lifesavings by investing them in an investment vehicle that he owned and then froze their accounts."

The board initially suspended Camarda’s certification after the SEC sued him and A.G. Morgan for fraud in June 2022. 

The SEC accused Camarda and the firm of recommending and selling securities without disclosing that they were indebted to the securities' issuer, Par Funding, and therefore had a conflict of interest. A loan of $750,000 hadn't been fully repaid at the time, according to the suit filed in federal court in Central Islip.

The SEC also alleged that more than $75 million was raised from more than 200 investors through the sale of unregistered securities with Par, between August 2017 and July 2020.

Camarda, A.G. Morgan and the firm’s former chief compliance officer were paid more than $7 million in connection with the sales, states the SEC suit.

Camarda and the firm have denied the charges. The case is ongoing, according to court filings.

Seventeen complaints were filed by customers against Camarda with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. from 2024 through January. Many are tied to conduct alleged in the SEC suit. FINRA regulates securities brokerages.

Together, those customers are seeking $22.6 million in damages. None of the cases have been resolved, based on the most recent available records from the authority. 

The conduct that Camarda is alleged to have engaged in "happens in the industry, but it’s unusual," said Mark W. Guthner, an associate professor of financial practice at Rutgers Business School in New Jersey and a former stock trader for Bank of America.

He said the financial advice industry has become professionalized since the 1980s with advisers studying finance in college, taking exams with ethics questions to obtain professional certification and the establishment of private regulatory groups.

"People have a fiduciary responsibility to do what’s in the best interest of the customer," Guthner said. "But when the customer is in their 80s or 90s the goal is preserving their money, not putting it at risk."