AWC/2010023232101/December 2011
OS/2008012703401/December 2011
AWC/2010024090501/December 2011
AWC/2010024280601/December 2011
AWC/2010024396001/October 2011
Rosas wrongfully converted a customer’s funds totaling $14,000 for his personal use by submitting withdrawal requests he forged to his member firm and an annuity company without the customer’s knowledge or consent. Rosas completed and forged other customers’ signatures on variable annuity withdrawal forms and submitted them to annuity companies, without the customers’ knowledge or consent, in an effort to convert funds totaling $45,000 from the customers’ variable annuity accounts for his personal use.
As indicated on these forms, the funds were to be made payable to a limited liability company for which Rosas was the president and CEO. One of the annuity companies cancelled the withdrawal requests and the other annuity company placed stop payments on the checks that were issued.
2009018661801/September 2011
Spotts wrongfully misappropriated approximately $197,860 from a coworker at his member firm by taking blank personal checks belonging to the coworker and forged the coworker’s name on the checks without the coworker’s knowledge or authorization. Spotts made some of the checks payable to himself and deposited the checks into his personal account, or made the checks payable to credit card companies and other creditors to pay his personal bills.
Spotts failed to appear and testify at an onthe- record interview.
OS/2010021189601/September 2011
Klecka created a non-genuine email purporting to be from the Arizona Department of Insurance (AZ DOI) regarding the agency’s investigation into Klecka’s activities at his former firm, and then provided a copy of the email to the member firm with which he was associated.
Klecka’s firm commenced an internal investigation of Klecka concerning questionable business activities related to his sale of life insurance policies. During the course of the firm’s review, it was learned that Klecka was the subject of an investigation being conducted by the state regarding activities that occurred while Klecka was associated with another member firm.
Klecka forwarded an email from his personal email address to his managing director at the firm --the forwarded email was purportedly from the state insurance department, which contained a timeline documenting Klecka’s contact with the agency, and the email bore what appeared to be the typed signature of an investigator with the AZ DOI. However, Klecka subsequently admitted that he was not truthful on the dates and fabricated the email to lead his firm to believe that the state investigation was more recent than it actually was. The forged document provided an explanation for Klecka’s failure to disclose the investigation to the firm earlier than he did.
The firm subsequently terminated Klecka for, among other reasons, creating a non-genuine email purporting to be from the AZ DOI regarding its investigation into Klecka’s activities at his former firm. In addition, Klecka failed to appear for a FINRA on-the-record interview.
AWC/2009020518901/September 2011
Martindell forged the signatures of her immediate supervisor and of her branch manager at her member firm.
Martindell signed the name of her supervisor, a firm financial advisor, to firm documents titled “Advice of Trade” letters without the financial advisor’s authorization or consent and mailed the letters to the customers involved; each of these letters informed a firm customer of trades that had been effected in that customer’s account.
Martindell signed her branch manager’s name to an internal firm form authorizing the transfer of funds and securities from the account of a customer to a joint account held by the customer and the customer’s relative. Martindell signed the branch manager’s name on another internal firm form that memorialized the multiple names that another customer could use in signing documents related to his account.
Martindell completed an IRA distribution form for her own account in order to access funds held in that account and Martindell again signed her branch manager’s name on this form. In addition, Martindell signed the branch manager’s name on these forms without his authorization or consent, and submitted the forms for further processing.
AWC/2010025073601/July 2011
Without authorization, Franz took possession of checks payable to the investment adviser firm where he was employed, deposited the checks, which totaled about $21,000, to a personal bank account, and converted a portion of the funds to his own use and benefit.
Franz was the broker of record for a money market mutual fund account that an investor owned, and while the investor was out of state and without his knowledge or authorization, Franz contacted the mutual fund company multiple times and instructed it to issue checks to the investor drawn against his money market account. The mutual fund company issued checks payable to the investor totaling about $271,250 and mailed them to the investor’s residence in Ohio.
Franz obtained possession of the checks at the investor’s residence and, without the investor’s knowledge or authorization, Franz forged his signature on the checks, deposited the checks to a personal bank account and converted a portion of the funds to his own use and benefit and remitted the rest to the investor.
2009017198901/July 2011
Vinas converted approximately $3.3 million from customers, mostly Mexico-based, while he was associated with member firms and served as the registered representative responsible for these customers’ brokerage accounts.
Vinas asked customers to sign blank documents, including firm documents that were printed in English when none of the customers spoke or read English, but they complied with Vinas’ request.
A variable credit line account was opened at Vinas’ firm in the customers’ name, and Vinas submitted or caused to be submitted applications requesting increases in the credit line that the firm approved, but the customers had not authorized the opening of the credit account or the subsequent credit increases, nor were they aware of the existence of the credit account. Vinas forged, or caused to be forged, customer signatures on Letters of Authorization (LOAs) and had a customer sign blank LOAs, which he submitted to his firm purportedly authorizing the transfer of customer funds without these customers’ authorization or knowledge. Vinas submitted, or caused to be submitted, to another member firm fraudulent verbal LOAs without the customers’ authorization or knowledge, which allowed him to wire funds from the customers’ accounts. In addition, Vinas presented false account documents to the customers, which reflected fictitious account balances although he had closed the account after taking the last remaining funds from the account.
Vinas failed to respond to FINRA requests to appear and provide testimony.
AWC/2010025194301/July 2011
2009017466201/July 2011
AWC/2008013648002/June 2011
Ameriprise failed to establish, maintain and enforce a supervisory system reasonably designed to detect and prevent one of its broker’s misconduct. The broker who was registered with the firm forged customers’ signatures on various financial documents that he submitted to the firm for processing. The broker agreed to pay certain fees for customers without alerting the firm in order to avoid complaints from these customers. The broker agreed to a Bar.
An Ameriprise surveillance analyst became aware of potential forgeries by the broker and failed to follow up with a timely investigation, and the firm’s supervisory system did not ensure that a timely investigation was conducted.
The firm had implemented a new set of procedures for its surveillance department through which the firm discovered that the investigation of the broker had not been completed, and the firm promptly reassigned the matter to other surveillance personnel. The firm completed its investigation of the broker nearly two and a half years after it first opened the investigation and found ample evidence of repeated forgeries by the broker, whose employment was then terminated.
AWC/2010023825201/June 2011
2009016698303/June 2011
Orendorff failed to respond to FINRA requests to appear for an on-the-record interview.
Further, Orendorff, in an attempt to correct errors made on a customer’s signed asset transfer disclosure form that his firm had returned to him for correction and resubmission obtained the customer’s signature on a blank asset transfer disclosure form, affixed the customer’s signature from the blank form to revised forms and submitted the forms to his member firm instead of having the customer sign a corrected form. When the firm questioned Orendorff about the documents, he admitted to altering and submitting them. Thereafter, the firm terminated Orendorff’s employment because the firm prohibited its representatives from affixing signatures to documents and required original signatures on each form.
OS/2009017222501/June 2011
Evans converted securities and funds in the joint brokerage account of customers, without their knowledge, authorization or consent, and deposited the funds into his personal checking account, converting an aggregate total of $60,000.
Evans forged a customer’s signature on checks linked to the customers’ bank account and made the checks payable to “cash” or to himself. Evans forged the customer’s signature on a cash withdrawal form linked to the customers’ bank account. Without the customers’ knowledge, authorization or consent, Evans sold securities totaling $30,000 from their brokerage account, transferred $10,000 to their bank deposit account and applied $10,000 to their brokerage account margin balance.
Evans failed to respond to FINRA requests for a signed, written statement regarding its investigation.
AWC/2009019996501/June 2011
Oftring was responsible for supervising a former registered representative of his member firm and failed to take appropriate action to reasonably supervise her to detect and prevent her violations and achieve compliance with applicable rules in connection with a customer’s account. Among other things, Oftring failed to take reasonable steps to follow up on certain indications of potential misconduct that should have alerted him to the representative’s violations.
The representative engaged in excessive, short-term trading in the customer’s account, which resulted in losses of approximately $60,000; the account was subject to frequent margin calls and transfers from a third-party account to satisfy margin calls in the account, and once, the representative transferred funds back to the third-party account by forging the customer’s signature on an LOA.
Oftring was aware of
- the active trading in the customer’s account and knew that the representative was effecting securities transactions in the account while it had a negative balance, but he never stopped the representative from trading and never contacted the customer to discuss the activity; and
- and approved the transfer of funds between the customer’s account and the third-party account, and accepted the representative’s explanation for the same without contacting the customers involved in the transfers.
2009019322001/May 2011
AWC/2010021348101/May 2011
RR falsely prepared a letter on the letterhead of one of his member firm’s institutional customers without the customer’s or firm’s knowledge or authorization. RR addressed the letter to the customer’s plan vendor, directing the plan vendor to change the commission split on the customer’s 457 plan to reflect that RR would receive a 100 percent commission; originally, the customer’s plan revenue reflected a commission split of 96 percent to RR and 4 percent to another registered representative.
RR’s member firm agreed to have commission revenues flow solely to him in the short term after the other registered representative resigned, but advised him that he needed to obtain a letter from the customer acknowledging his role as the sole broker of record due to the other registered representative’s resignation. The letter purportedly authorized RR to receive 100 percent of the commission from the plan revenue, and RR forged the signature of the customer’s plan controller without her knowledge or authorization. RR’s firm policy prohibits a registered representative from signing a customer’s signature to any paperwork, regardless of whether the customer has given permission to do so, and prohibits a registered representative from signing a client’s name on any form, with or without the client’s authorization.
AWC/2010022424201)/April 2011
2009017788201/April 2011
Shah made unauthorized foreign currency trades in a customer bank account, resulting in margin calls being generated for the account and consequently the customer’s other bank accounts were frozen, preventing the customer from transferring funds from those accounts. Shah made unauthorized money transfers from another customer’s bank account to satisfy, in part, the margin calls for the first client and to be able to transfer funds at its request.
In order to effect the unauthorized fund transfers, Shah forged a signature and created falsified Letters of Authorization (LOAs) by cutting a bank director’s signature from an account opening document and pasting it on a fabricated LOA. Shah fabricated documents regarding another client’s obligation to meet capital calls and falsely created a memorandum representing that the capital calls had been met.
Shah falsely told the customer’s beneficial owner that all outstanding calls had been met and to ignore notices he too was receiving. To make the memorandum appear authentic, Shah fabricated an internal email address for a fictitious employee and sent the memorandum to the beneficial owner to make him believe that the calls had been met.
Shah failed to respond to FINRA requests to provide on-the-record testimony and to provide a signed statement.
AWC/2009018219101/March 2011
Miller and another individual were trainees in a member firm’s professional development program and formed a partnership through which they jointly solicited and handled customer accounts as well as splitting any production credits that either generated.
As part of their efforts to attract clients, Miller and the individual created a spreadsheet that set a model fund portfolio that they either presented to potential customers during meetings or sent by email or mail to prospective customers. Miller and the individual sent a version of their model fund portfolio that included a mix of conservative and risky securities along with a chart of history of returns the individual securities and overall portfolio earned; Miller and the individual, in some communications with potential customers, misrepresented that this was a portfolio that they managed and that the stated returns were their returns. Neither Miller nor the individual sought or received a firm supervisor’s prior approval for the use of the model fund portfolio or permission of its dissemination, nor was the model portfolio’s spreadsheet filed with FINRA’s Advertising Regulation Department, within 10 business days after first dissemination of the material as required.
The model fund portfolios did not include any information regarding the risks associated with the funds, and the chart did not include a sound basis for the performance evaluation for each of the securities included in the portfolio. The model portfolio failed to identify or to display in a prominent fashion Miller’s and the other individual’s association with their firm. In addition,
Miller had his assistant type up a stop transfer letter and he forged the customer’s signature on the letter meant to prevent the customer from transferring his account to another firm. Moreover,Miller admitted to his branch manager that he had forged the stop transfer request and the firm immediately terminated Miller’s employment.
2009020488001/AWC/February 2011
AWC/2010023931401/February 2011
Buchholz misappropriated approximately $1,350,000 from customers, a number of whom were retirees, by liquidating their variable annuities and/or mutual funds and then transferring the proceeds to his personal bank account, converting the proceeds for his own use and benefit. As part of this scheme, Buchholz falsely and fraudulently represented, at times by forging customer signatures on redemption documents, that certain customers had authorized the redemption of the securities in order to obtain the proceeds of the sale; fraudulently induced certain customers to authorize the redemption of securities, based on misrepresentations that the proceeds would be reinvested to the customers’ investment accounts; and caused checks to be drawn in the customers’ names and caused the checks to be sent directly either to his office or to the customers.
If the checks were sent directly
- to the customers, Buchholz convinced those clients to turn the checks over to him, making false and fraudulent representations that he would deposit the funds in their securities accounts to be reinvested; however, he did not reinvest the proceeds but instead deposited the checks into his personal bank accounts and used the proceeds for his own purpose;
- to his office, Buchholz simply deposited the checks in his own bank accounts for his personal use and sometimes forged the customers’ signatures in order to cash the checks.
AWC/2010022635301/February 2011
2008016036901/February 2011
Charles sold variable universal life insurance products to his member firm’s customers and after leaving the firm, Charles remained the assigned representative on the accounts and received modest annual “trailing commissions.” Charles’ former firm asked him to pay a “single appointment” fee of $100 to the firm or submit customer-signed “Telephone or Electronic Transaction Authorization” forms for him to continue to service the customers’ accounts. Charles chose to do neither, but when he realized the deadline was approaching, he signed the customers’ names on the authorization forms without the customers’ permission and sent them to the firm via facsimile.
One of the customers complained that Charles had not being authorized to sign her name on the authorization form; therefore, Charles’ former firm notified Charles and his present firm of the customer’s allegation and asked Charles for a written explanation. During Charles’ present firm’s investigation into the complaint, he made misstatements, verbally and in writing, to the firm, denying forging the signatures and fabricating a story to prevent the firm from discovering his misconduct. Also, Charles subsequently admitted to the firm that his alibi was false and that he signed the customers’ names without authorization.
2008013833601/January 2011
Herrero-Rovira converted approximately $203,000 in customer funds by forging customers’ signatures on Letters of Authorization (LOAs) and firm checks issued pursuant to the LOAs, and depositing the checks into his personal bank account or others’ account without the customers’ knowledge or authorization.
Herrero-Rovira converted an additional $16,000 from a customer by causing a check payable to the customer in that amount to be withdrawn from the customer’s account without the customer’s knowledge or authorization, and forging the customer’s check endorsement.
Herrero-Rovira failed to respond to FINRA requests for information.
2008014705101/January 2011
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