The actor who once voiced the toy-torturing bully Sid and skated through a Disney Channel summer is now answering to a California elder-abuse complaint over $2.1 million in gold coins.

Erik Von Detten, 44, is accused of financial elder abuse and fraud in the lawsuit. Court documents in the case became public Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, though Norman Greenberg, 97, and Sheila Greenberg, 85, filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on May 11, 2026, as trustees of their family trust. Named alongside Von Detten is Rosland Capital, the Los Angeles precious-metals asset management and sales firm that employed him as an account representative. The allegations have not been proven in court.

The couple allege Von Detten steered them, then in their 80s and 90s, into $2.1 million worth of gold coins. Their complaint brings five claims: financial elder abuse, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud and conversion. California law treats financial elder abuse as wrongfully obtaining an older person’s property through fraud or other conduct likely to cause financial harm.

They Asked for the Top Advisor

Commercials that the lawsuit describes as “designed in large part to appeal to senior citizens” prompted the Greenbergs to phone Rosland in 2020. They asked the firm for its top advisor and were connected with Von Detten.

Over the phone calls that followed, the complaint says, Von Detten said he had special knowledge of gold and offered to help the couple with the roughly $2 million sitting in their retirement accounts. The Greenbergs say they were blunt with him: precious metals were new to them, their understanding of the subject was slight, they were of advanced age, and trust was what they wanted in an advisor.

They started with about $1 million on two Lady Liberty gold coins. The suit alleges another $1 million of their money went into more coins, with additional purchases between 2020 and 2021 bringing the total to roughly $2.1 million, plus another $114,000 routed in through the family trust. The coins went to a storage facility instead of the couple’s home.

The complaint itemizes the orders: 1,328 Lady Liberty gold coins in October 2020; 1,499 the following month at 60% above market value; then 109 Lewis Chessmen King coins at a 36% premium and 50 F1 coins at a 34% markup in August 2021, using family trust money.

The holdings are now worth about $1.3 million, per the complaint — a loss of roughly $900,000. That shortfall came to light for the Greenbergs in 2025, when they independently checked what their gold was worth.

They allege the coins carried excessive premiums and were worth little more than the metal inside them, and that Rosland used high-pressure tactics to sell precious metals far above market value. They have requested a jury trial and are asking no less than $1.8 million in damages for each allegation, plus prejudgment interest accruing at 10% and punitive damages. A case conference in the Los Angeles Superior Court case is scheduled for Nov. 9.

Rosland’s bankruptcy could limit what the Greenbergs recover from the company. The claims against Von Detten personally are a separate matter.

470 Voicemails and a Shuttered Firm

Actor William Devane starred in Rosland’s commercials on Fox News and Newsmax, pitching gold coins as a hedge against inflation. The spots urged retirees to convert IRAs into gold-backed funds, with a free safe thrown in for storage. The company reported revenues of $151 million in 2021, then net losses of $24 million from 2022 to 2025. Each order earned its sales representative 15% to 35% of the profit, even if that order was later refunded.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Central District of California received the firm’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing on July 2, after it ceased operations; the filing listed some $64 million in liabilities against just $500,000 in assets. About 470 messages and voicemails from customers demanding refunds or demanding their gold were waiting at the company when Rosland shut down. Bankruptcy filings show scrutiny from the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Securities and Exchange Commission. As of Oct. 21, another company had acquired Rosland Capital’s assets.

Rosland’s creditors’ committee is seeking to subpoena Von Detten as part of its investigation into the company’s failure, saying he appears to have “played an instrumental part in the Debtor’s business and its financial collapse.”

The committee says the Greenbergs’ case is far from unique. “It is one of hundreds. Creditors, including the other Committee members, have described remarkably similar experiences: trust cultivated, expertise professed, reliance encouraged, and substantial savings ultimately lost with zero information about where their money has gone,” the committee said.

The committee’s attorneys wrote: “The Committee believes the facts point to something far more troubling: a business that preyed on a vulnerable population, stole customer money while its ability to perform was collapsing, lied to its own customers about what their money would be used for, and ultimately left creditors to ask whether those funds were misused, diverted, transferred to insiders or affiliates, or simply consumed to keep the scheme alive.”

Rosland Capital’s bankruptcy counsel said on Oct. 21 that the firm “cannot comment directly on the lawsuit,” adding that attorneys “have worked with the Creditors Committee to create a liquidating trust which will have the power to investigate the financial history of the company to provide answers to the claims of the Greenbergs and other investors.”

From Sid and Skates to Sales

Von Detten began acting in 1992 with a 55-episode run on “Days of Our Lives.” He voiced Sid Phillips in “Toy Story” in 1995, starred in the 1998 Disney Channel movie “Brink!” and played Clu Bell on “So Weird” from 1999 to 2001. He also voiced Erwin Lawson on “Recess.” That series ran from 1997 to 2001.

Josh Bryant, the love interest who dumps Anne Hathaway’s Mia Thermopolis in “The Princess Diaries,” was his role in 2001. His other credits include “Escape to Witch Mountain” and “Complete Savages.”

Von Detten largely stepped away from acting around 2010 and moved into sales and finance. His wife, Angela, a real estate agent, married him in 2018, the same year he joined Rosland. The Lifetime movie “My Acting Coach Nightmare” brought him his first role in more than a decade in 2024.

The five claims in the complaint remain unproven.