I Played Quarterback in the NFL for Twelve Years. Then I Found Out My Financial Advisor Had Stolen Everything

Over the next three weeks, the truth came out.

Brett had been stealing from me for six years. Forged signatures on wire transfers. Fake investments in real estate funds that didn’t exist. He’d even opened two credit cards in my name. Identity theft, the FBI agent called it, on top of securities fraud.

He’d done the same thing to four other athletes.

By the time the FBI found him, he was in the Cayman Islands.

I was ruined. Or close to it.

I still had the ranch, but it had a mortgage I’d taken out on Brett’s advice. My NFL pension wouldn’t kick in for years. My disability insurance covered some of my medical bills but not all of them.

I told Mia I couldn’t afford physical therapy anymore.

She showed up at the ranch the next Tuesday anyway, with her table in the back of her car.

“I don’t do charity,” I said.

“Good,” she said. “Neither do I. You’re going to teach me to ride. That’s the payment.”

So that’s what we did. Two days a week, she fixed my shoulder in the morning, and in the afternoon I put her on a gentle old mare named Juniper and taught her how to sit a horse.

She was terrible at it. She laughed every time she nearly fell off. I hadn’t heard anyone laugh like that on my ranch, ever.

Meanwhile, she was helping me in another way.

Mia’s cousin was a forensic accountant in Denver. With her help, and a securities fraud attorney who worked on contingency, we tracked every stolen dollar. We filed claims with Brett’s brokerage firm, which, it turned out, was legally responsible for not supervising him.

One evening in December, my attorney called.

“Ryan,” he said. “Sit down. The firm wants to settle.”