Investment adviser accused of misappropriating more than $1 million killed himself Saturday

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/news/crime/investment-adviser-accused-of-misappropriating-more-than-million-killed-himself/article_10c140a6-2535-11e6-a86f-8f05231217f8.html

POSTED: SATURDAY, MAY 28, 2016 7:34 PM | UPDATED: 8:16 PM, SAT MAY 28, 2016.
By Bob Glissmann / World-Herald staff writer

A longtime investment adviser in Omaha accused by state regulators of misappropriating more than $1.35 million of client funds killed himself Saturday, Omaha police said.

About 12:05 p.m., officers were alerted to a black Chevy Tahoe occupied by a man parked near 56th and F Streets. The officer who responded saw a man standing next to the Tahoe behind the building at 5509 F St. As the officer got out of his cruiser, police said, the man, Jerome P. "Joe" Bonnett Jr., 51, shot himself in the head. Omaha Fire Department medics were called to the scene and took Bonnett to the Nebraska Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Bonnett ran the Bonnett Wealth Management investment firm. Two law enforcement officials familiar with the two-month-old ongoing investigation have said that the losses to Bonnett's investment clients have reached $2 million. The FBI has joined the state in the investigation, the officials said.

The allegations go back at least nine years and have "all the makings of a Ponzi scheme" -- in which someone takes money from new clients to replenish money owed to other clients -- the officials said.

FULL story at link.

[bemildred]

1. Other people's money is so attractive to the morally bankrupt. nt