Sentencing Pushed Back for Ex-Morgan Stanley Adviser Darryl Cohen in NBA Fraud Case

The sentencing of Darryl M. Cohen, the former Morgan Stanley financial adviser a Manhattan federal jury found guilty in March of cheating three NBA players, has been moved off its original October date, court records show. U.S. District Judge Vernon S. Broderick granted a consent request from prosecutors on Aug. 19 and reset the hearing from Oct. 7 to Nov. 6, 2026, according to the docket in United States v. Cohen, No. 1:23-cr-00134, in the Southern District of New York.

The government's Aug. 17 letter asked for a 30-day adjournment. Inner City Press reported that prosecutors said all three assistant U.S. attorneys on the case might be in other trials around the original date. The public RECAP docket, which runs through Aug. 20, showed no later scheduling change as of Oct. 8.

As of August, Cohen's bid to overturn the verdict was still pending. His lawyers filed a motion for a judgment of acquittal or, in the alternative, a new trial on April 17, and prosecutors filed their opposition on May 18. In orders excluding time under the Speedy Trial Act in July and August, Broderick wrote that he was continuing to consider the post-trial motion.

Jurors returned their verdict on March 3 after a five-week trial, convicting Cohen of wire fraud, punishable by up to 20 years in prison, and investment adviser fraud, punishable by up to five. They could not agree on a conspiracy count, and Broderick declared a mistrial on it. A government letter filed in July said that count remains pending.

Prosecutors said that from about 2017 through 2020 Cohen exploited his advisory relationships with Chandler Parsons, Courtney Lee and Jrue Holiday to take more than $5 million from them. In the government's account, Cohen steered the three into viatical life insurance policies that a law firm controlled by accountant Brian Gilder had bought and then resold to the players at markups of 222%, 310% and 244%; the law firm cleared about $4.5 million, and the players were not told of Gilder's role. The government also said Cohen moved $500,000 out of Parsons's and Lee's accounts as supposed gifts to the nonprofit Beast Basketball, spent about $238,000 of it on a gym behind his house, and routed about $328,125 of Parsons's money to pay off Nyjer Morgan, a former baseball player and another client who had demanded repayment.

Three other people were charged alongside Cohen when the indictment was unsealed in March 2023. Gilder and former NBA agent Charles Briscoe were each sentenced on a conspiracy count to time served and three years of supervised release that included six months of home confinement, according to the docket; Briscoe was also ordered to pay $1 million in restitution. Calvin Darden Jr., convicted at his own trial, was sentenced in April 2025 to 151 months in prison.

Cohen's BrokerCheck file traces about 24 years in the wirehouse channel: Merrill Lynch from February 1997 to May 2003, Wells Fargo Advisors from May 2003 to June 2015, and Morgan Stanley from June 2015 to April 2021, with the last two stints based in Westlake Village, Calif. Morgan Stanley discharged him on March 9, 2021. Its termination disclosure cites undisclosed and unapproved outside client business and transactions, along with the use of an unapproved platform for what it called inappropriate client communications.

FINRA followed with a permanent bar. In a Dec. 30, 2021, decision that became final in February 2022, an extended hearing panel found that Cohen had not fully answered Rule 8210 requests for emails, texts, bank statements and phone records during an investigation into possible conversion of customer funds. The panel noted that most of the customers whose arbitration claims prompted the inquiry were current or former professional athletes.

BrokerCheck lists eight customer disputes involving Cohen that settled from 2020 onward, for about $6.5 million combined; the largest was $2.5 million. In a 2023 statement reported by CNBC, Morgan Stanley said it had resolved client claims tied to Cohen.

The firm has also pursued Cohen directly. In an award dated Aug. 26, 2026, FINRA sole public arbitrator Robert D. Sussin ordered him to pay Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and an affiliated financing entity $8,131,454.78 in damages on eight promissory notes signed between June 2015 and February 2020, plus $560,945.40 in attorneys' fees, $12,731.25 in costs, the $2,500 filing fee and interest of $1,024.89 a day. Morgan Stanley filed its claim on March 19, 2021, ten days after the discharge. Cohen had asked the arbitrator to expunge the firm's Form U5 remarks; the award denied all relief it did not specifically grant.

A parallel SEC civil suit, filed in March 2023, alleges that Cohen misappropriated more than $1 million from the three players over a stretch running from October 2017 to April 2020.

Earlier adviser frauds against pro athletes drew a wide range of sentences. Phillip Kenner, a former adviser whose clients included NHL player Michael Peca, got 17 years in October 2020 in the Eastern District of New York after a 2015 conviction on wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges. A month later in Santa Ana, Calif., Ash Narayan, who advised athletes from RGT Capital Management's Irvine office, received 37 months and an $18.8 million restitution order after pleading guilty to wire fraud and filing a false tax return. Prosecutors said Narayan took more than $30 million from clients including pitcher Jake Peavy and quarterback Mark Sanchez.