NC financial adviser admits taking money for self

RALEIGH — A former financial adviser in North Carolina has admitted taking nearly $3 million from an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease to buy a beach house and a wine collection.

Federal authorities said 65-year-old Harold Earl Blondeau pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court in Greenville to one count of investment adviser fraud and one count of tax fraud.

The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Friday that the former Morgan Keegan adviser is a former N.C. State basketball player. Prosecutors said Blondeau spent $24,000 on wine, paid down his own credit line and bought a beach house.

Blondeau faces a penalty that ranges from probation to eight years in prison when he is sentenced in September. He also could be ordered to pay restitution to 83-year-old Martha B. Capps of Raleigh.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)