Ex-Money Manager To Be Sentenced For Helping Lover Steal From Chargers' Dwight Freeney
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — The former money manager for San Diego Charger's star Dwight Freeney will be sentenced Tuesday for helping her lover steal about $53,000 from her client's debit card.
Eva Weinberg, 49, of Hancock Park, pleaded guilty in June to one count of being an accessory after the fact, a charge that carries a potential sentence of up to five years in federal prison. Prosecutors have recommended probation for the defendant.
Weinberg and her lover, Miami Beach developer Michael A. Stern, were arrested last year on federal wire fraud charges alleging they swindled Freeney out of millions of dollars.
In her plea agreement, Weinberg admitted knowing that Stern used the Wells Fargo card for cash withdrawals, then helped hide the information from Freeney.
She also acknowledged that she could have foreseen that Stern had stolen nearly $3 million in unauthorized and fraudulent transfers from a company owned by Freeney.
Stern was sentenced in October to five years in federal prison and ordered to reimburse Freeney about $2.5 million.
Weinberg began working as Freeney's money manager in 2010 after leaving a job as a financial adviser at Bank of America-owned Merrill Lynch. She handled Freeney's personal finances, real estate investments and business dealings involving the Rolling Stone Los Angeles nightspot at the Hollywood & Highland complex, according to court documents.
Prosecutors say Weinberg introduced Stern as Michael Millar, telling Freeney that he could help with various business opportunities. Between June 2010 and October 2011, Weinberg wired nearly $2.2 in more than 100 transactions from Freeney's bank account, without his knowledge, to a company owned by Stern, according to court papers.
Stern, 53, also acknowledged paying for an airline ticket for an individual – who turned out to be a confidential informant – to travel from Miami to Los Angeles to find and destroy a computer hard drive containing files Stern knew were possibly crucial to a federal grand jury investigation of the case. The conversation was taped, prosecutors said.
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