A Pittsburgh investment manager pleaded guilty Wednesday to a single count of wire fraud to resolve accusations he diverted more than $3.7 million from a family’s investment fund.
Thomas Pipich Jr., 74, will be sentenced May 12 in federal court.
The maximum sentence can include up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 or twice Pipich’s gain from the crime.
Authorities said Pipich transferred more than $3.7 million between May 2017 and August 2023 from a bank account for a fund he managed to another client’s account in an effort to cover for investment losses.
Pipich lied to the victims about the transfers, claiming they were part of a nonexistent loan, officials said.
He also paid himself and his wife more than $800,000 from the funds.
Pipich was charged with wire fraud in November, more than a year after the victims, Berlekamp Family Investments, filed a federal lawsuit over the same allegations.
According to the criminal information, Pipich in 2005 helped create BarTom Investments. According to federal prosecutors, he then used that entity to take money from Berlekamp Family Investments.
The Berlekamp fund was started by Elwyn Berlekamp, a math and computer science professor at the University of California, Berkely. Known for his work in coding theory, Berlekamp pioneered algorithms that allowed spacecraft — including the Hubble telescope — to send images back to Earth.
When Berlekamp was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and given six months to live in 2012, he established the investment fund to grow his family’s wealth for his three children, the lawsuit said.
He hired Pipich — who he had met around 2000 when Pipich was providing investment advisory services to the National Academy of Sciences — to serve as the fund’s sole manager.
But the criminal information said Pipich had lost millions of dollars through BarTom. He then used money — totalling $3.7 million — from the Berlekamp fund to make up for those losses.
The lawsuit, which was stayed in June, claims Pipich told the Berlekamp family the investments were providing “high returns” and generating good “cash flow.”
It also alleges that Pipich admitted to taking millions of dollars when confronted by Pipich’s daughter during a phone call in 2023.
