NOTE: Stipulations of Fact and Consent to Penalty (SFC); Offers of Settlement (OS); and Letters of Acceptance Waiver, and Consent (AWC) are entered into by Respondents without admitting or denying the allegations, but consent is given to the described sanctions & to the entry of findings. Additionally, for AWCs, if FINRA has reason to believe a violation has occurred and the member or associated person does not dispute the violation, FINRA may prepare and request that the member or associated person execute a letter accepting a finding of violation, consenting to the imposition of sanctions, and agreeing to waive such member's or associated person's right to a hearing before a hearing panel, and any right of appeal to the National Adjudicatory Council, the SEC, and the courts, or to otherwise challenge the validity of the letter, if the letter is accepted. The letter shall describe the act or practice engaged in or omitted, the rule, regulation, or statutory provision violated, and the sanction or sanctions to be imposed.
2011
Thomas William Scanlon AWC/2010024313001/ 2011
Scanlon impersonated customers and a
registered representative
in order to obtain confidential customer information from his former
member firm.
Scanlon made telephone calls to his former
firm’s customer service
line in order to obtain confidential customer information
concerning certain of his former
clients accounts still maintained at that firm. Scanlon was no
longer the agent of record
on the customer accounts and, therefore, was not entitled to
access to this confidential
information. Scanlon made a number
of telephone calls to his
former firm’s customer service line in which he impersonated the
registered representative
at that firm who had been assigned to a number of Scanlon’s former
customer accounts.
Scanlon sought the confidential customer information in order to
facilitate discussion
during his upcoming meetings with the customers about possibly
transferring their
accounts to his new employer member firm.
Thomas William Scanlon: Fined $7,500; Suspended 3 months
Sarian impersonated customers via telephone in order to effect transactions in their
accounts. He signed a relative’s name on a
brokerage account withdrawal form to effect a transaction in the account.
Finkin's customer submitted an application to the firm for a mortgage, term loan, and
line of credit, and as part of the application process, the firm retained an
outside law firm to engage in negotiations on the term of the loans with the
customer’s counsel. Finkin sent fabricated emails to
various individuals involved in the negotiations, including the customer’s
counsel, and each of the emails instructed the recipients to contact Finkin
with any questions or concerns; Finkin sent the emails from his personal email
account in a way that made the messages appear to the recipient to be from a
paralegal at the outside law firm, and not Finkin. Finkin failed to comply with a FINRA request for a document.
Richard Edwin Lenhardt Jr. AWC/2009019388001/ 2011
Lenhardt directed an associate to use personal information of
some of Lenhardt’s customers to establish online access to their accounts at
another firm, and through that access, obtain value and performance information
relating to whole life insurance policies that the customers held at that firm.
Although the purpose for obtaining the information was
to include it in personalized financial reports that were prepared for the
customers, the access to their accounts and insurance policy information was
obtained without the customers’ knowledge or consent.
Richard Edwin Lenhardt Jr.: Fined $5,000; Suspended 2 months
Tieger convinced his junior partner to call an annuity company and impersonate his relative for the purpose of confirming a $275,000 withdrawal from one of the relative’s variable annuity contracts.
The relative attempted to make a distribution from his variable annuity and after growing frustrated with the withdrawal process, instructed Tieger to take care of it. After multiple requests, Tieger’s junior partner agreed to make the telephone call using the relative’s cellular phone, spoke to the annuity company representative and, pretending to be Tieger’s relative, asked the representative to process the contract withdrawal. The junior partner answered the representative’s questions by reading from a script that Tieger had prepared. Tieger watched the junior partner’s call from outside a glass conference room.
After Tieger left the office building, the junior partner called the representative back to inform him that he was not the relative and that he had called because someone standing next to him asked him to impersonate the relative.
David Lewis Tieger : Fined $5,000; Suspended 30 business days
Sternecker attempted to determine a customer’s total amount of investments without the customer’s knowledge or consent. Sternecker called a representative at another investment firm and inquired about the customer’s investments at that firm. Sternecker requested a firm office assistant to impersonate the customer and authorize the representative at the other firm to provide Sternecker with information about the customer over the phone. As part of the impersonation, the office assistant answered security questions about the customer from information the customer provided to Sternecker earlier; the security answers provided by the office assistant induced the other firm’s representative to provide Sternecker with the customer’s investment information.
The office assistant reported the impersonation to her manager, which led to an internal investigation and after Sternecker admitted to his misconduct, the firm terminated him.
Dane Carl Sternecker : Fined $5,000; Suspended 30 business days
Arnold participated in a scheme to obtain confidential information and documentation regarding insurance policies by impersonating policy owners during calls with insurance companies. In connection with a review of certain customer life insurance policies, Arnold and another individual called insurance companies even though neither were agents of record on the policies or otherwise entitled to have access to that information. Arnold impersonated different insurance policy owners in order to obtain the information and documentation so that the other individual could perform a review analysis of the policies.
Martin Dean White Sr. (Principal) AWC/2008012577601/ 2011
As President of his member firm, White permitted the creation and dissemination of misleading sales and advertising materials to various state securities regulators in an effort to draw scrutiny to a business established by former registered representatives who left the firm to start their own business selling oil and gas interests. White made it appear as if the documents had been generated by an entity the former registered representatives established. A firm employee drafted and assembled the mailings to create the appearance that an officer or employee of the former registered representatives’ new business had generated and authorized the mailings. The mailings contained a cover letter drafted to draw regulators’ interest to the former registered representatives’ entity.
The mailings appeared to be from the former registered representatives’ entity, listed the name of an officer or employee of the entity, contained a return address of the entity on the envelopes used in the mailings, included printouts from the entity’s website, provided an executive memorandum, and also provided a “Confidential Private Placement Memorandum” and “Subscription Agreement” which both listed the former registered representatives’ new business throughout the documentation.
Martin Dean White Sr. (Principal): Fined $5,000; Suspended 3 months
Philip Michael O’Hearn (Principal) AWC/2010022804601/ 2011
O’Hearn placed a phone call to an insurance company’s customer service call center asking for information about a customers’ policy and falsely identified himself as the representative assigned to the life insurance policy, providing the agent of record’s name and agent number. O’Hearn also provided the service agent with the customers’ updated mailing address, and requested that the agent send certain policy information to them.
Philip Michael O’Hearn (Principal): Fined $5,000; Suspended 10 business days