It sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie: a tale of broken friendships, pilfered retirement funds, an investment firm that existed only on paper, mistresses and lavish trips — a story which destroyed the retirement plans of a Cocoa Beach man and ended in a suicide.
For that man, and nearly 50 other investors, however, the trail of trouble that followed in the wake of Stephen Romney Swensen’s fraudulent financial advice and suicide is very real.
Now Mark Fox, of Cocoa Beach is joining legal action against the Utah-based financial planning firm Wealth Navigation Advisors, to recover the $850,000 of his life savings invested with his friend Swensen, a Utah resident.
The action follows a federal investigation that unraveled a decade-long, $29 million Ponzi scheme Swensen — who was a registered agent with WNA — used to funnel funds from dozens of clients through a fraudulent investment firm and into Swensen’s pockets, court records show.
“My family and I are still reeling from shock. It turned out that our own trusted investment advisor, who I considered a friend, had been ripping us off for years,” Fox said in a statement issued by his attorneys.
“It really makes us question who we can trust, and how we are going to make ends meet as we get older.”
Fox and Swensen, both pilots, met at an aviation hangar at a Utah airport nearly 25 years ago, striking up a friendship that would last decades.
Swensen, whose photos show him with an...
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