David Bloom – the twice convicted felon known as the “Wall Street Whiz Kid” – pleaded no contest Tuesday to multiple counts of theft and securities fraud in Los Angeles.
Bloom spent years using a Hollywood landmark and a 100-year-old bar to score new marks on the West Coast, authorities said, using luxury items to trick people into giving him money.
Bloom, 62, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to 18 counts of theft by deception and credit fraud. The Manhattan-born con artist is expected to be sentenced to 10 years in prison at a trial in June.
Bloom’s trial was set to go to trial in April, nearly three years after prosecutors first filed charges in 2023, but health issues delayed the trial after only one witness took the stand. After a week-long recess in the case, Bloom returned to court to wave the white flag Tuesday afternoon.
A 2022 Times investigation detailed how Bloom regularly entertained the Frolic Room bar and residents of the Villa Carlotta apartment in Hollywood by projecting an aura of wealth and status. He promised people he could get their screens on Netflix or set them up with Super Bowl tickets, making billions to convince his neighbors and other bar enthusiasts that he could hook them up to anyone or anything.
He said he was quickly able to sell shares of famous companies that were about to go public – including Instacart, SoHo House and Snapchat. At least a dozen people shelled out nearly $190,000 to Bloom in 2021, the Los Angeles Police Department previously told The Times.
The Los Angeles County public defender’s office, which represented Bloom, declined to comment.
“David Bloom didn’t just lie, he stole from people who trusted him, while he treated his livelihood as his own money,” Los Angeles County Dist. He said. Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “Today’s plea of no contest makes it clear that those who exploit others for their own benefit will face dire consequences.”
Hochman said that in total, Bloom’s scam netted about $250,000.
As the months passed and most of Bloom’s targets saw no return on their initial investment, they began to ask questions and look to the past. It wasn’t long before they found out that Bloom had been convicted of the same crime.
New York newspapers dubbed Bloom the “Wall Street Whiz Kid” in the 1980s after he was indicted in federal court for defrauding nearly 140 people, including his grandmother, out of $15 million.
Born on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Bloom came from money and introduced himself to his wealthy parents’ associates as head of the investment group he founded at Duke University. The targeted investment group says its clients include Bill Cosby and members of the Rockefeller family, according to published reports.
But Bloom didn’t invest his clients’ money, instead using that money to buy multimillion-dollar paintings, a New York City condo, a Long Island beach house and an Aston Martin. He pleaded guilty to mail and securities fraud in 1987 and was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. He was also banned from participating in the security industry for life.
In 2000, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and corporate fraud after running similar scams on employees of a Manhattan restaurant, according to New York prosecutors.
In Los Angeles, Bloom was arrested for the first time in August 2022 after the residents of Villa Carlotta confronted him at his house about their lost investment. But prosecutors took nearly a year to file charges, and during that time, Bloom struck again.
When he opened the statement last month, the Provincial Deputy. He said. Paul Przelomiec said Bloom approached the man at a Culver City bar in September 2022, one month after he was arrested on fraud charges, and began telling him about an investment opportunity in an Israeli technology company. As the two continued to talk, Bloom learned that the man’s wife had heart problems and said she knew a cardiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
While convincing a man to buy $7,500 worth of stock in a technology company, Bloom also promised the man he could help his wife get a “second opinion” from a Cedars-Sinai doctor she didn’t actually know, Przelomeic said.
