An Edina financial adviser has landed herself a 30-month stint in federal prison after siphoning $2.1 million from her clients, as per an announcement made by United States Attorney Andrew M. Luger. Kristi Margaret Berge, at 48 years old, is the former head of KSI Financial and part-owner of J&K Connect LLC, and she's now tasked with repaying her victims in full—the exact sum sitting at $2,104,395.
Details from court documents reveal that Berge, who was both FINRA-registered and Minnesota-licensed as an investment adviser, engaged in a wire fraud scheme stretching from June 2020 to February 2023 where she deceived her clients with promises of safe investment havens like IRAs and 401(k)s but instead funneled their money into her pockets using it to buy several properties in Edina, while to cover her tracks, she dressed up unauthorized withdrawals as "management" or "administrative" fees, even fabricating records to make her thefts seem legit.
Berge's guilty plea to one count of wire fraud came earlier this year and yesterday's sentence was handed down by Judge Eric C. Tostrud in U.S. District Court. The proverbial gavel on Berge's fate concludes an investigation led by the FBI, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew S. Ebert, Harry M. Jacobs, and Craig Baune on the prosecutorial front lines in bringing justice.
As reported on the Department of Justice's website, Berge has now been sentenced.
