Gallagher was a “scammer extraordinaire: a smooth, silver-haired and silver-tongued, Scripture-spouting Texas radio show host,” AARP podcast host Michelle Kosinski said. Overall, he stole a combined $32 million in personal savings from his trusting victims.

Since 2013, Gallagher encouraged his listeners to invest in his retirement planning firm called the Gallagher Financial Group. His elderly victims gave him anywhere from $50,000 to $600,000 each in personal savings for investment.

In-person and on the radio, he marketed himself as “The Money Doctor,” promising great returns. Unbeknownst to his investors, he lacked the required state license needed to be an investment adviser, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Court records after his arrest in March 2019 showed that his personal offices were in “disarray and disorder” with “over a decade of business records and unopened mail scattered and stacked randomly throughout the office and additional suites.” He kept paperwork in his car and also lacked an accounting system for keeping track of his victims’ investments.

Court records also showed that he used the money from his newer investors to pay off earlier investors, the very definition of a Ponzi scheme.

He reportedly lured new investors by hosting public events, like a volunteer musical revue called Spectacular Senior Follies and movie nights at a Grapevine theater offering free concessions, according to the Dallas Morning News. His Christian AM radio show also added to his perceived trustworthiness, as did the personal relationships he built with investors.

In August, Gallagher pleaded guilty to three charges involving deception, theft and misapplication of funds over $200,000. He received a life term for each of the charges. Judge Elizabeth Beach also sentenced him to three 10-year prison sentences, for one count of forgery and two counts of exploitation of the elderly. The sentences must all be served consecutively.

“Doc Gallagher is one of the worst offenders I have seen,” said Lori Varnell, chief of the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Elder Financial Fraud team.

“He ruthlessly stole from his clients who trusted him for almost a decade. He…exploited many elder individuals. He worked his way around churches preying on people who believed he was a Christian,” Varnell added.

A Dallas County judge sentenced Gallagher to 25 years in state prison on March 27, 2020. Additionally, the court ordered him to pay $10,386,816 in restitution to his victims. Many of his victims will never see their money again.

His 2016 book, Jesus Christ, Money Master instructed readers on how to reap “the benefits of putting Christ back in the center” of their personal spending habits. It explored “four truths taught about money in the New Testament” including “don’t love it, do give it, how to earn it and how to make it grow.”

Susan Pippi, one of his victims, was dying of lymphoma when she invested $675,000 with Gallagher. Still ill, she told local news station KTVT, “I don’t trust anybody anymore, except for God and my family.”

“Gallagher reminds me of the little wizard in the movie The Wizard of Oz,” she told the Dallas Morning News, “except without the good outcome.”