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He’s been kicked off the team — permanently.
A Florida broker who managed money for dozens of prominent National Football League players — including Santana Moss and Plaxico Burress — has been banned from the securities industry after putting the group into a high-risk investment that lost them a total of $40 million.
Jeff Rubin, 38, directed some 31 NFL players into an illegal gambling operation in Alabama — which went bust two years later, a Wall Street regulator said yesterday.
One of the players, Samari Toure Rolle, a former cornerback with the Baltimore Ravens, lost $3.2 million, the bulk of his liquid assets, to Rubin, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which imposed the ban.
Finra, the brokerage industry’s self-regulatory body, deemed the investments “unsuitable.” The agency also found that Rubin hid the investments and a series of tax liens from former brokerage employers.
“This case demonstrates how broker misconduct can target high-income, inexperienced and vulnerable investors,” said Brad Bennett, chief of enforcement at Finra.
Rubin, who lives in Lighthouse Point, Fla., held multiple jobs to keep the ball in the air, Finra said.
In addition to being registered with two outside brokerage firms, he was also head of Pro Sports Financial, which provided financial “concierge” services to professional athletes for $40,000 a year.
Rubin was also CEO of Resorts Development Group, the parent company of a small casino near Dothan, Ala., known as Center Stage, press reports said.
RDG was no touchdown, however, and went bankrupt last January amid a mountain of debt.
Worse yet, Center Stage, which had been marketed as a major entertainment center, was raided last summer by Alabama’s attorney general, who seized cash and gambling terminals.
An earlier version of Center Stage, called Country Crossing, was shut down in 2010 amid raid attempts by the former governor, local press reports said.
In exchange for sending players to RDG, Rubin received a 4 percent stake in the company and $500,000, Finra said.
It wasn’t just the gambling operation that cost players money. Rubin also got Rolle to plunk down $1 million toward a series of “speculative” real estate investments, and $500,000 in a partnership seeking to invest in manufacturing, Finra said.
Rubin’s troubles began in earnest last year when Terrell Owens, former wide receiver for several NFL teams, in a published interview in GQ, blasted the investment advisers who directed him to invest $2 million in the Alabama entertainment complex.
Putting player cash into a casino violates the NFL’s policy prohibiting players from investing in gambling, the report said.
In a twist, Rubin first gained a positive reputation among NFL players by exposing a Ponzi scheme by former NFL agent William “Tank” Black.