An Orcutt investment adviser formally pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in federal court Tuesday morning, nearly two years after being accused of stealing from clients.

Julie Anne Darrah, 52, of Santa Maria entered the guilty plea months after signing an agreement.

She remains free on a $50,000 bond and will learn her fate during a sentencing hearing scheduled for May 19. She faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in state prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Darrah operated Vivid Financial Management Inc., which had offices in Old Town Orcutt, Lompoc and Arroyo Grade. 

An investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Darrah was the president, chief compliance officer and a one-third shareholder of VFM.

Her scheme unraveled after Vivid Financial sold in late 2021 to Minnesota-based Wealth Enhancement Group, which later filed a federal lawsuit against Darrah.

The SEC soon followed with its own legal action, prompting the sale of Darrah’s various properties. 

In December, U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer found Darrah liable for paying $2,416,511, including interest.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office filed the criminal case late last year. 

“The defendant took advantage of her clients’ trust,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph McNally said. “Many of them were elderly, and she stole from them using their funds as her own. Our seniors should never have to question whether their money is safe. She will now be held accountable for her actions.”

Darrah stole about $2.25 million from her firm’s clients, obtaining control of her victims’ assets, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Without the victims’ knowledge or consent, she liquidated their security holdings and transferred the proceeds to accounts she controlled. 

Some victims were left in desperate circumstances, without the money to pay for end-of-life care, when the fraud was discovered.

Darrah stole money from victims from about November 2016 to July 2023. 

She used stolen funds to buy properties for herself, pay other personal expenses, buy luxury vehicles and operate other business ventures.

She had ownership stakes in The Homestead, a deli in Old Town Orcutt, two Cups & Crumbs stores in the Santa Maria Valley, Central Coast Specialty Foods in Lompoc and the Sausage Co. in Orcutt.

In October 2023, those other businesses closed abruptly in the wake of Darrah’s fraud.

At the time the allegations arose, she served as the board president for the Orcutt Area Seniors in Service, or OASIS, Center, having joined the board in 2021. She was removed after the accusations.

In 2019, she was named to the Marian Regional Medical Center Foundation board but left before the allegations became public.

Since 2023, the court collected various entries related to her holdings, including more than $925,000 from a title company for sales of homes on Solomon and Los Angeles roads in the Santa Maria Valley, funds from various financial institutions where she had accounts, and a $36,000 deposit from Lompoc for a development project she had planned in the city.

In the federal lawsuit filed in Minnesota, Wealth Enhancement Group, which purchased Vivid Financial Management Inc., accused Darrah of false and misleading statements and the concealment of material facts, including not telling that firm about her theft of individual client funds.  

After the fraud was discovered, WEG incurred approximately $5.4 million in losses.

WEG’s lawsuit against Darrah ordered her to pay $7 million to resolve the claims made by the firm. 

The WEG lawsuit bluntly described the allegations against the woman, saying she “curated her reputation as a wealthy community patron.”  

“For vulnerable clients, Darrah was more than a financial adviser: she spent many years — for some clients, over a decade — gaining their trust by incrementally inserting herself into their lives as ‘the daughter they never had,” according to the lawsuit.

Her various actions violated financial adviser professional boundaries, the lawsuit noted.

Along the way, according to the WEG lawsuit, Darrah deceived her coworkers and evaded multi-layer anti-fraud safeguards of multiple leading financial institutions.

A WEG representative declined to comment because of the ongoing criminal case against Darrah.