Twin Cities investment adviser agrees to prison, financial ruin for $2.25M scheme

Paul Walsh, Star Tribune

A Maple Grove investment adviser is ready to accept years in prison and financial ruin for stealing more than $2.25 million from nearly two dozen clients, then using the money to feed his lavish lifestyle.

Isaiah L. Goodman, 33, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis to mail fraud in connection with the alleged scheme that stretched for roughly three years until November.

Goodman's plea agreement says that federal sentencing guidelines suggest prison time ranging from 5¼ to slightly more than eight years.

However, the prosecution and defense can argue at sentencing on June 29 for a longer or shorter term, and Judge Susan Nelson can adjust the prison time at her discretion.

The agreement also calls for Goodman to make full restitution for the $2,250,123 he stole from investors, and to forfeit to the federal government his homes in Plymouth and Maple Grove, two SUVs and any holdings in the businesses tied to his ill-gotten fortune.

Goodman's willingness to admit to the allegations backs up what his attorney, Joe Dixon, told the Star Tribune last week upon the criminal complaint being filed: that his client "takes full responsibility for his actions and is doing what he can to make amends."

Prosecutors say Goodman made an array of purchases with money his 23 clients were led to believe would be put "into safe and secure investment accounts, such as individual retirement accounts and 401(k) retirement savings plans," the charging document read.

Instead, Goodman now admits that he spent much of the $2.25 million on building a $1.7 million home in Plymouth, a $76,000 down payment on a $535,000 house in Maple Grove, $49,500 for a Ford Expedition, nearly $14,000 for a hot tub, $12,000 on a cruise vacation, $8,300 for fitness club memberships and $4,516 on jewelry from Tiffany.

Goodman, a registered investment adviser and broker, swindled his clients while operating Becoming Financial Group Inc., Becoming Financial Advisory Services and MoneyVerbs, a business that claimed to provide customers with financial guidance through an internet-based app.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482

Latest Stories

  • Dramatic Photos Show Thousands Of Stunned Sea Turtles Rescued From Texas Storm

    Turtles get cold-stunned when water temperatures fall. One group said it was taking care of more than 2,500 after the ice storm in Texas.

  • Bill O'Reilly Asks Where Is The Rise In White Supremacy, Gets Well And Truly Ratioed

    The disgraced former Fox News host's rhetorical question backfired.

  • Naked hotel guests in South Korea shocked to discover mirrored glass in sauna was actually see-through

    A newlywed South Korean couple say they are undergoing counselling after being told that the windows in the luxurious spa of their five-star resort hotel were of one-way glass – only to discover on the final day of their stay that they had been walking around naked in full view of other guests. The husband posted a complaint online about the Grand Josun Jeju Hotel, on the island of Jeju off the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. He claimed that his wife had used the sauna on several occasions during their stay and had not bothered to use a towel to cover up because they had been told that the windows of the second-floor sauna were mirrored. “While taking a walk around the hotel on the last day of our stay, we discovered the interior was visible from the outside”, the Korea Times quoted the man as saying. “We could even see the writing on a thermometer inside the sauna. “There were a number of other guests using the facilities, including minors”. The guests, who have not been named, added that windows onto the showers and toilet facilities were also not protected by one-way glass. “My wife and I are currently undergoing psychotherapy as we were so shocked after realising that we had taken a shower and used toilets that were visible from the outside”, the man said. Staff at the £520-a-night hotel compounded the problem, the man said, by claiming that blinds in the sauna had been rolled up “by mistake” and calling the police when they complained, accusing them of obstructing the property’s business. In response to criticism online, the operator of the hotel admitted to making “mistakes during operations”. In a message on the hotel’s website, Josun Hotels & Resorts said: “We deeply apologise for causing inconvenience to customers due to the omission of glass barrier coatings … in some areas of the women’s sauna”. The sauna has been closed until the situation can be remedied, it added.

  • At the WH press briefing, deputy national security advisor gives an update on the SolarWinds hack

    During the White House press briefing on Wednesday deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology Anne Neuberger gave an update on the investigation into the SolarWinds hack, which officials say compromised government and private industry computer systems and was backed by Russia.

  • Biden Claims ‘We Didn’t Have’ a COVID Vaccine When He Took Office

    President Biden claimed at one point during a CNN town hall on Tuesday that his administration came into office with no coronavirus vaccines available. Biden received his first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 21, and the second dose in January. While discussing the issue of vaccine supply during the town hall, Biden initially said there were 50 million doses available when he assumed office. President Biden affirmed that Covid-19 vaccines will be widely available to the general public by the end of July. "By the end of July we'll have over 600 million doses, enough to vaccinate every single American." #BidenTownHall https://t.co/K3sxmUXFdG pic.twitter.com/xTkje54Aqx — CNN (@CNN) February 17, 2021 “We came into office, there were only 50 million doses that were available. By the end of July we’ll have over 600 million doses,” Biden told host Anderson Cooper. However, Biden also said “we got into office and found out…there was nothing in the refrigerator, figuratively and literally speaking, and there were 10 million doses a day that were available.” (The Biden administration’s initial target was to administer 1 million vaccine doses per day, a pace already set by the time the president was sworn in.) “It’s one thing to have the vaccine, which we didn’t have when we came into office, but” one also needs “a vaccinator,” Biden subsequently told Cooper, when asked about the logistics of getting shots to Americans. The U.S. is currently administering coronavirus vaccine doses at a seven-day rolling average of 1.7 million per day, according to the Bloomberg vaccine tracker. The pace of vaccinations has risen steadily since December 14, when a New York nurse received the first shot outside of a clinical trial. The Biden administration has downplayed the efforts of the previous administration in aiding the development and distribution of COVID vaccines. Vice President Kamala Harris said that the Biden administration was “starting from scratch” on vaccine production in an interview with Axios over the weekend, contradicting Dr. Fauci, who said in January “we certainly are not starting from scratch because there is activity going on in the distribution.” Additionally, Biden addressed the stalled reopening of school districts across the U.S. during the town hall, calling reports that his administration planned to open schools for one day per week a miscommunication Biden contradicted White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said last week that the administration hoped to open schools for “at least one day a week in the majority of schools by day 100.” Psaki later said the administration was committed to opening schools five days a week on condition that coronavirus mitigation measures were in place. “Your administration had set a goal to open the majority of schools in your first 100 days. You’re now saying that means those schools may only be open for at least one day a week,” Cooper told Biden. “That’s not true. It was a mistake in the communication,” Biden said, adding that his administration’s goal was to open schools in grades K-8 for five days per week.

  • Texas governor walks back Fox News comments on Green New Deal, says gas, coal failed in Texas freeze

    While millions of Texans were without power in below-freezing temperatures Tuesday night, Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) went on Fox News and told Sean Hannity that the failure of the state's power grid "shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America." Abbott said "our wind and our solar got shut down," which "thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis." The main culprit for the Texas power outages is failures in the natural gas sector, though, so on Wednesday, Abbott walked back his comments. "I was asked a question on one TV show about renewable, and I responded to that question," Abbott said. "Every source of power that the state of Texas has has been compromised, whether it be renewable power such as wind or solar, but also, as I mentioned today, access to coal-generated power, access to gas-generated power, also have been compromised." For all of 2020, 40 percent of Texas energy came from natural gas–fired plants, 23 percent from wind turbines, 18 percent from coal, and 11 percent from nuclear power, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the Texas power grid. But in the winter, only about 7 percent of ERCOT's capacity was projected to come from wind sources. "Texas is still fossil-fueled," and it's obviously silly to suggest "the Republicans who run the state had accidentally adopted a Green New Deal that eliminated fossil fuels and destroyed the reliability of the grid," Michael Grunwald writes at Politico. "The real problem in Texas is the freaky weather, and unfortunately, climate change is delivering a lot more freaky weather" — a phenomenon Texas Tech climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe calls "global weirding." Abbott, in explaining the Texas grid failures, pleaded Wednesday that "this is a once-in-every-120-year cold front that we have to respond to." But "today, only a fool expects a hundred-year drought or flood or snowfall event to happen once every hundred years," Grunwald said, and Texas — and America — need to prepare accordingly. More stories from theweek.comTrump comes out of hidingThe Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.Americans lost a year of life expectancy in the 1st half of 2020. Black Americans lost 2.7 years.

  • As A Young Black Girl, I Loved My Grandfather. Then I Found Out He'd Been A KKK Member.

    "I had no idea the Klan had such a powerful hold in Colorado until I found confirmation about my grandfather and began researching."

  • Jimmy Kimmel Gives Trump Supporters An Uncomfortable Truth About The Ex-President

    The late-night host tells Trump's fans how the former president really feels about them.

  • Florida commissioners mocked a journalist. Now, one official says they’re getting threats.

    The Brevard County Commission has drawn national ire since drafting a resolution mocking an editorial page journalist that passed unanimously last week — an action a commissioner now claims has prompted threats from political fanatics to their commission offices.

  • The parts of Texas not on its ERCOT power grid appear to have weathered the freeze with few outages

    Texas is nearing the end of what Gov. Greg Abbott (R) called "a once-in-every-120-year cold front," but that doesn't entirely explain why more than a million households still had no electricity early Thursday, after three full days of below-freezing temperatures. Plenty of places in the world keep their power on in prolonged arctic weather, and so did parts of Texas. Those edges of Texas, including El Paso, "are primarily in areas outside of those supported by ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the electric grid for 90 percent of the state and operates separately from federal oversight and regulation," KHOU 11 Houston reported Wednesday night. After the 2011 winter freeze, El Paso Electric, on the Western Interconnect grid, spent heavily to "winterize our equipment and facilities so they could stand minus-10 degree weather for a sustained period of time," Eddie Gutierrez, an El Paso Electric spokesman, told KHOU. So this year, "we had about three thousand people that were out during this period, a thousand of them had outages that were less than five minutes." On the other side of Texas, near the Louisiana border, the city of Beaumont also appears to have weather the storm without massive outages. Entergy, which powers Beaumont on the Eastern Interconnect grid, told KHOU it also winterized its infrastructure after the 2011 storm. Weatherizing power generation and extraction equipment is voluntary in Texas, though the state legislature will probably revisit that strategy when it dissects ERCOT this year. More stories from theweek.comTrump comes out of hidingTexas governor walks back Fox News comments on Green New Deal, says gas, coal failed in Texas freezeThe Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.

  • Elderly Asian Woman Called Racial Slurs, Needs 5-10 Stitches After Attack at Bakery in Queens

    On Wednesday afternoon, an unidentified man wearing a red jacket verbally assaulted and physically shoved Maggie Cheng’s mother on Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Flushing, Queens. The New York Police Department told NextShark that the woman was waiting at a bakery when the suspect approached her.

  • Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals She Is A COVID-19 Long-Hauler With 'Healing' Still To Do

    The Oscar-winning actor and GOOP founder has been beset by what she called "long-tail" symptoms.

  • Kayleigh McEnany clashes with Jake Tapper after drawing outrage for Biden tweet

    Former colleague told Jake Tapper Ms McEnany was courting QAnon with tweet

  • UK facing fresh diplomatic tensions with United Arab Emirates over 'kidnapped' Princess Latifa

    Dubai’s ruler is unlikely to be rattled by BBC Panorama’s explosive documentary about the alleged kidnapping of his daughter, as he insists that she was brought home as part of a “rescue mission.” But the saga of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Princess Latifa could quickly become a diplomatic nightmare for the wealthy Gulf state. UN officials have already begun poring over the latest video smuggled out of Dubai by the princesses’ allies, in which she claims she is being held against her will in a barricaded compound with no access to lawyers or medical help. They could then decide to pass the case on to the UN’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for a high profile and potentially embarrassing investigation into the 71-year-old Dubai ruler. It may also heap unwelcome strain on the wealthy Gulf state’s relationship with Britain, which has a strong emphasis on security co-operation, investment and tourism.

  • The main failure in Texas' power crisis isn't renewable energy — it's the 'thermal fleet'

    Natural gas, the state's dominant energy source, has provided drastically less energy than expected, according to experts and industry data.

  • Chinatown Shop Owner Who Saved Woman from Robbery By Firing Gun is Arrested, Bailed Out

    An Oakland Chinatown liquor store owner was arrested and bailed out after firing his gun four times to save a woman in her 30s from a violent robbery on Monday. New Oakland Chief of Police LeRonne Armstrong addressed the incident on Tuesday, saying he would prefer residents to call the authorities rather than getting involved, CBS San Francisco reported. OPD update: the department tells me the incident is categorized as an attempted robbery now that they’ve determined “no loss taken”. Witnesses tell me the suspect made a grab for the woman’s purse and she didn’t let go.

  • These Kitchen Gadgets Make Cooking Look Good

    We've rounded up seven of the best-designed small kitchen appliances to grace your countertopsOriginally Appeared on Architectural Digest

  • Trump on Hannity reveals he only befriended Rush Limbaugh ‘when I got word he was with us all the way’

    Former president says he went on to play a lot of golf with the late radio host. ‘When he hit the ball, he hit it a long way’

  • Nearly 5,000 Hong Kong citizens sign up for new UK visa: The Times

    Nearly 5,000 Hong Kong citizens have applied to live, work and study in the United Kingdom under a new visa scheme which opens up a path to British citizenship for people fleeing China's crackdown in the former colony, The Times newspaper reported. London made changes to its visa rules to give millions of Hong Kong residents a chance to settle in Britain after China imposed a new security law that democracy activists say will end the freedoms promised to the territory in 1997. Under the rules, Hong Kong residents who hold a British National Overseas (BNO) passport will be allowed to live in the United Kingdom for five years and then apply for "settled status" and citizenship.

  • The Daily Show solves Texas blackouts with 'America's most renewable resource: the insane hatred of AOC'

    "A freak winter storm slammed into Texas, causing blackouts for millions of people," and after three days, things are "awful," Trevor Noah said on Wednesday's Daily Show. "I know people were praying for Texas to go blue, but not like this. I mean is it too much to ask for just one apocalypse at a time?" All over Texas, "pipes are frozen, temperatures are below zero, ice is everywhere — forget Texans, this would be too much for Elsa," he joked. Texans are struggling to get heat, water, and food, but "luckily for them, their leaders have stepped up in their time of need" — to blame windmills and Democrats, Noah said. Look, this is embarrassing for Texas Republicans, he said. "I mean, this is the state that prides itself on its oil and gas industry, and now that industry has failed spectacularly." But GOP state leaders and their cable news allies are getting "so desperate to just let fossil fuels off the hook" they're blaming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the nonexistent Green New Deal, he added, and that "is f---ing insane." "This just goes to show you, no matter what happens, no matter how far removed she is from the problem, conservatives can and will always find a way to blame the boogeyman, AOC," Noah said. That's clearly "disingenuous, but the good news is it's led to an amazing breakthrough that might just solve Texas' energy problems forever." That breakthrough, unveiled in a fake ad, "draws power from America's most renewable resource: the insane hatred of AOC." Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) "has been working hard to somehow push the blame to Democrats and the Green New Deal, which doesn't even exist yet," Jimmy Kimmel said on Kimmel Live. "And Tucker Carlson is helping him out by blaming it on windmills," an accusation so wrong "even the expert Tucker dragged on the show to talk smack about windmills wasn't willing to get into it." Meanwhile, President Biden told a CNN town hall "he's tired of talking about Donald Trump and referred to Donald Trump as 'the former guy' — which I love, because he will hate that," Kimmel said. "Joe knows that the way to deflate Trump is to ignore him, but it's hard, he's like a 2-year-old — you worry that if you take your eyes off him for a minute, he'll flush your keys down the toilet." More stories from theweek.comTrump comes out of hidingTexas governor walks back Fox News comments on Green New Deal, says gas, coal failed in Texas freezeThe Texas power grid failed mostly due to natural gas. Republicans are blaming wind turbines.