A prosecutor told a Manhattan federal jury Wednesday that former Morgan Stanley investment adviser Darryl Cohen pulled off a long con of current and former NBA players, winning their confidence and friendship before cheating them out of more than $5 million.

After nearly a month of trial, jurors heard closing arguments in the fraud and conspiracy trial of Cohen, who prosecutors say overcharged three of his professional athlete clients for investments in viatical life insurance settlements by millions of dollars, and stole funds to pay for a home gym and to keep another angry ballplayer off his back.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Thompson told the jury that Cohen, the "architect and leader of these frauds," abused his position of trust as an investment adviser and his friendship with the victims in order to defraud them over the course of a four-year-long conspiracy.

"He controlled who knew what, he told people what to do, and he built the relationships of trust that were essential to defraud the victims," Thompson said. "He was the boss."

According to the government, Cohen conspired with his childhood friend and co-defendant, Brian Gilder, to arrange for three NBA stars — Portland Trail Blazers point guard Jrue Holiday and former NBA players Chandler Parsons and Courtney Lee, both of whom played for the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets — to invest in viatical life settlements. This investment involves purchasing another person's life insurance policy in exchange for any death benefit.

Prosecutors say Holiday, Parsons and Lee didn't know that Cohen and Gilder had arranged for Johnson Bjornlie & Merritt, a law firm controlled in substantial part by Gilder, to purchase the viaticals and sell them to the players for millions of dollars over the firm's purchase prices.

All three players, as well as Holiday's wife and former professional soccer player Lauren Holiday, testified at trial about how they would not have agreed to the viatical investments had they known Cohen and Gilder stood to cash in by selling the policies at inflated prices. They also all confirmed that they considered Cohen to be a personal friend.

"[Cohen] knew that what he was doing violated his fiduciary obligations. He knew that deceiving his victims and hiding these important facts went against his duty to put their interests first," Thompson said. "He was putting his own interests before those of his clients, period."

Attorneys for Cohen argue that it was Gilder — an independent financial planner who did taxes for Holiday, Parsons and Lee — who was handling the sale of the viaticals and lied to Cohen about what the policy costs were.

Gilder was charged alongside Cohen and pled guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. He did not testify at Cohen's trial. Cohen is facing wire fraud, investment adviser fraud and conspiracy charges.

After Thompson concluded his summations Wednesday, the jury heard the first part of closings from Cohen's attorney Michael Bloch of Bloch & White LLP, who said there hasn't been "a single email or text message" introduced as trial evidence that shows Cohen trying to cover anything up or "even suggesting that anything be hidden from his clients, or disparaging a single one of his clients."

Cohen is further accused of misappropriating other funds from Parsons and Lee, for purported donations to a youth basketball — which Cohen's son belonged to — called Beast Basketball. That money, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, was used in part to build an upscale gym in Cohen's backyard, prosecutors say, and to pay off another client, former Major League Baseball player Nyjer Morgan, who had become incensed with Cohen over money he was purportedly owed.

Parsons testified that he began to suspect Cohen of misconduct with respect to Beast Basketball after going over past charitable contributions and discovering that he had seemingly donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the youth basketball program without his knowledge.

Thompson told jurors that Cohen "essentially used Parsons as his own piggy bank" and that it doesn't make sense that Parsons would donate hundreds of thousands of dollars to Beast Basketball, purportedly full of well-off kids with little to no professional prospects, when Parsons already sponsored an elite youth basketball program of his own.

The defense has cast Parsons as a serial liar driven by greed, with a track record of dishonesty. The jury has heard about how Parsons secretly opened a sports agency while he was still playing in the NBA, a serious violation of league rules.

"He knew what he was doing was prohibited and that it was dirty," Bloch said.

Parsons turned on Cohen after his professional basketball career was sidelined due to a car accident, in hopes of profiting from litigation against Morgan Stanley, Cohen's now-former employer.

Bloch told the jury that there is ample reason to doubt Cohen's guilt, since the government's fact witnesses changed their stories from what they had originally told prosecutors. When questioned about those discrepancies by defense lawyers on cross, Bloch said those same witnesses suddenly couldn't remember anything.

"Chandler Parsons said 'I don't recall' 247 times in this case," Bloch said. "That should make you hesitate."

Summations are due to continue Thursday.

Following an internal investigation, Morgan Stanley fired Cohen, who was also given a securities industry ban by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The claims from Parsons, Holiday and Lee against Morgan Stanley were later settled for millions of dollars.

The government is represented by Kevin Mead, William Kinder and Brandon Thompson of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Cohen is represented by Michael Bloch, Benjamin White and Deborah Frankel of Bloch & White LLP, Andrew Wise of Miller & Chevalier Chtd., and Mark Sedlander of Mancini Shenk LLP.

The case is U.S. v. Cohen et al., case number 1:23-cr-00134, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.