Omaha woman accused of mismanaging the financial affairs of Michael Vick

Nebraska securities officials are investigating an Omaha woman who allegedly mismanaged the financial affairs of former pro football quarterback Michael Vick, now in prison from a dog-fighting conviction.

Michael Vick in December 2006.

But an Omaha lawyer said the woman, Mary Roy Wong, did not enrich herself at the expense of Vick and other professional athletes she represents and whom she considers personal friends.

"Everything I see is her acting in their interests, absolutely," said Robert Craig, who said he recently worked with Wong to sort out Vick’s finances. "She’s really kind of helping them, making sure they don’t go down the road so many young athletes go down."

Wong has advised Nebraska football players Demorrio Williams, Josh Bullocks and his twin brother Daniel, Carl Nicks and Steve Octavien, who now are all in the National Football League. Williams and Vick were teammates in the Atlanta Falcons before Vick began serving a 23-month federal prison term.

"She amazed me with how she was willing to devote herself to Michael’s interests. She never got a penny, as far as I know. She didn’t even get her expenses reimbursed." Vick’s attorneys asked U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Virginia to require Wong to turn over Vick’s financial records.

The attorneys for Vick alleged that Wong "betrayed his trust" through unauthorized transactions with his money.

This isn’t the first time Wong has faced questions about her practices.

In 2004, she lost her brokerage license after the New York Stock Exchange ruled she put $147,000 from an Omaha woman’s annuity into her own bank account. Sheila Cahill, attorney for the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance, said Friday that an investigation of Wong is ongoing.

Cahill declined to give details but said that once the NYSE remokes a brokerage license, giving investment advice can be a civil or criminal violation.

Wong, who is 44 or 45, did not return calls to her mobile phone. No one answered the door at her home in southwest Omaha.

Craig said he began working with Wong last year to help Vick so that when he leaves prison in 2009 his financial issues will be settled. Wong became "almost like a mother hen" to Vick, Craig said .

They "had a very good personal relationship. They were very close. He always hugged her."

Wong helped arrange the funeral for Vick’s grandmother, Craig said.

Wong was paying Vick’s bills and at one point had to locate $900,000 for a payment related to the dog-fighting conviction, Craig said.

Over about six months, Craig said, he and Wong talked with Vick’s creditors to devise a plan to repay them. But one creditor began taking legal action to take over some of those assets, so Vick filed for bankruptcy protection, Craig said.

Earlier this summer he and Wong went to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., to meet with Vick but he refused to see them, Craig said. "It has become clear to us that one of his people started saying things about Mary that weren’t true, but got Mike’s ear."

As for the other athletes, Craig said, Wong consults with "the boys," as she calls them, as friends.

"I don’t know whether one needs a license to do these things," he said.

In filings with the Bankruptcy Court in Virginia, Paul K. Campsen, an attorney for Vick, said that "at Wong’s insistence" Vick gave her power of attorney over his financial affairs so she could manage his assets while he was in the penitentiary.

Vick gave Wong $550,000 to invest last year, and she removed another $350,000 from an account without Vick’s authorization, Campsen said in court filings.

Wong had worked as a registered broker for Wells Fargo Investments LLC in Omaha from 2000 to 2004, according to securities regulators’ documents, and before that in the Omaha office of First Investments, a New York securities firm.

After the New York Stock Exchange censured and barred Wong, Wells Fargo settled the complaint of the annuity’s owner, Madeline White, and terminated Wong.

White said Friday that she trusted Wong with her life’s savings.

"All she did was take from me," White said. "When I finally found out, she denied it."

White, who is 86 and a widow, said she still is recovering from the experience. "I had a lot of trust in people before that, but now I’m afraid of everybody. I don’t take anybody’s word for anything."

Wong has lawsuits pending against White and Wells Fargo over the 2004 issues, claiming breach of contract.

Also in 2004, the NYSE found that Wong improperly took $8,900 from another elderly woman’s account and then repaid it with money from Demorrio Williams. Williams testified at a NYSE hearing that he approved the transfer because he owed Wong money for rims she had purchased for his car.

Williams and the Bullocks brothers are investors in United Republic Bank of Omaha, a transaction Wong helped arrange.

Mike Pate, the bank’s chief executive, said he met Wong through a business acquaintance. "I had no idea who she was."

In filing with the Nebraska Secretary of State, Wong is listed as the registered agent for Williams & Bullocks LLC, a company formed in 2005.

Williams & Bullocks LLC invested about 4 percent of the money raised to start the new bank, which opened in 2006 with $5.5 million in capital from its investors.

Wong is not a direct investor in the bank, Pate said, and never worked for the bank. The bank has 30 to 35 investors, he said.

Wong and the Bullocks brothers attended the dedication of the bank’s new building near 180th Street and West Dodge Road last month. Williams was unable to attend.

Wong said at the time she handles the finances of the three ex-Huskers in addition to Carl Nicks and Steve Octavien, who were seniors last year in Lincoln.

She said she talked almost daily with Williams and the Bullocks and that she attends many of their games. Daniel Bullocks plays for the Detroit Lions and Josh Bullocks for the New Orleans Saints.

Williams, reached Friday, said he was "not in any position to talk" about his relationship with Wong.

Nebraska records list Wong as co-owner with Josh Bullocks of a 2007 Cadillac Escalade with the license plate "DET27." Bullocks wears No. 27 on his Detroit jersey.

In court papers, bankruptcy trustee W. Clarkson McDow Jr. said that Vick’s financial affairs are in disarray even though he earned about $60 million between 2001 and 2006.

Vick "has very limited knowledge of the state of his finances," McDow said, instead relying on others "to make financial decisions for him, giving them discretionary control over large sums of money."

Vick had appointed New Jersey financial adviser David Talbot as his "designated responsible person" and gave him $35,000 and an $80,000 Mercedes. But on Aug. 8, McDow said, the attorney general of New Jersey filed a complaint alleging Talbot defrauded a church of $500,000 through an investment group called His Glory Worldwide LLC.

McDow asked the bankruptcy judge to appoint a trustee to handle Vick’s financial affairs.

World-Herald staff writers Mitch Sherman and Lynn Safranek contributed to this report. ?

• Contact the writer: 444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com