While associated with the firm, registered representatives made misrepresentations or omissions of material fact to purchasers of unsecured bridge notes and warrants to purchase common stock of a successor company.

The registered representatives:

• guaranteed customers that they would receive back their principal investment plus returns, failed to inform investors of any risks associated with the investments and did not discuss the risks outlined in the private placement memorandum (PPM) that could result in them losing their entire investment. The registered representatives had no reasonable basis for the guarantees given the description of the placement agent’s limited role in the PPM; and
• provided unwarranted price predictions to customers regarding the future price of common stock for which the warrants would be exchangeable and guaranteed the payment at maturity of promissory notes, which led customers to believe that funds raised by the sale of the anticipated private placement would be held in escrow for redemption of the promissory notes.

The Firm, acting through a registered representative, made misrepresentations and/or omissions of material fact to customers in connection with the sale of the private placement of firm units consisting of Class B common stock and warrants to purchase Class A common stock; the PPM stated that the investment was speculative, involving a high degree of risk and was only suitable for persons who could risk losing their entire investment. The representative represented to customers that he would invest their funds in another private placement and in direct contradiction, invested the funds in the firm private placement.

The Representative recommended and effected the sale of these securities without having a reasonable basis to believe that the transactions were suitable given the customers’ financial circumstances and conditions, and their investment objectives. The representative recommended customers use margin in their accounts, which was unsuitable given their risk tolerance and investment objectives, and he exercised discretion without prior written authorization in customers’ accounts.

Acting through Locy, its chief operating officer (COO) and president, the Firm failed to reasonably supervise the registered representative and failed to follow up on “red flags” that should have alerted him to the need to investigate the representative’s sales practices and determine whether trading restrictions, heightened supervision or discipline were warranted. Moreover, despite numerous red flags, the firm took no steps to contact customers or place the representative on heightened supervision, although it later placed limits only on the representative’s use of margin. The firm eventually suspended his trading authority after additional large margin calls, and Locy failed to ensure that the representative was making accurate representations and suitable recommendations.

Turbeville, the firm’s chief executive officer (CEO), and Locy delegated responsibility to Mercier, the firm’s chief compliance officer (CCO), to conduct due diligence on a company and were aware of red flags regarding its offering but did not take steps to investigate. 

Acting through Turbeville, Locy and Mercier, the Firm failed to establish, maintain and enforce supervisory procedures reasonably designed to prevent violations of NASD Rule 2310 regarding suitability; under the firm’s written supervisory procedures (WSPs), Mercier was responsible for ensuring the offering complied with due diligence requirements but performed only a superficial review and failed to complete the steps required by the WSPs; Locy never evaluated the company’s financial situation and was unsure if a certified public accountant (CPA) audited the financials, and no one visited the company’s facility. Neither Turbeville nor Locy took any steps to ensure Mercier had completed the due diligence process. Turbeville and Locy created the firm’s deficient supervisory system; the firm’s procedures were inadequate to prevent and detect unsuitable recommendations resulting from excessive trading, excessive use of margin and over-concentration; principals did not review trades or correspondence; and the firm’s new account application process was flawed because a reviewing principal was unable to obtain an accurate picture of customers’ financial status, investment objectives and investment history when reviewing a transaction for suitability. The firm’s procedures failed to identify specific reports that its compliance department was to review and did not provide guidance on the actions or analysis that should occur in response to the reports; Turbeville and Locy knew, or should have known, of the compliance department’s limited reviews, but neither of them took steps to address the inadequate system.

Brookstone Securities, Inc.: Censured; Fine $200,000

David William Locy (Principal): Fined $10,000; Suspended from 3 months in Principal capacity only

Mark Mather Mercier (Principal): Fined $5,000; Suspended from 3 months in Principal capacity only

Antony Lee Turbeville (Principal): Fined $10,000; Suspended from 3 months in Principal capacity only

McGrath failed to reasonably supervise a registered representative who recommended and effected unsuitable and excessive trading in a customer’s account. McGrath had supervisory responsibility over the registered representative and was responsible for reviewing his securities recommendations to ensure compliance with member firm procedures and applicable securities rules. McGrath failed to reasonably supervise the registered representative by, among other things, failing to enforce firm account procedures and failing to respond to red flags regarding the registered representative’s trading activity in the customer’s account.

The firm’s supervisory procedures required McGrath to review account transactions, such as the registered representative’s recommended transactions in the customer’s account, on a daily and monthly basis for, among other things, general suitability, excessive trading and churning, in-and-out trading and excessive commissions and fees; the firm’s procedures also required that McGrath review all exception reports related to the individuals who he supervised and take appropriate measures as necessary. Through these required reviews, McGrath was aware of red flags of possible misconduct in the customer’s account, including frequent short-term trading, excessive commission and margin charges, high turnover and cost-to-equity ratios, and substantial trading losses, and the account frequently appeared on the firm’s exception reports; McGrath failed to reasonably respond to and address the red flags in the customer’s account.

McGrath never spoke with the customer despite the fact that the firm’s compliance department sent several emails to McGrath advising him that the customer’s account needed customer contact as required by the firm’s WSPs; McGrath never spoke with the customer directly to confirm that he was aware of the activity level in his account or that such activity was appropriate in light of his financial circumstances and investment objectives.

McGrath failed to ensure that an Active Account Suitability Supplement and Questionnaire was sent to the customer within the time frame the firm’s WSPs required. Moreover, months after the registered representative began trading in the customer’s account, McGrath instructed the registered representative to curtail the short-term trading in the account and hold positions for a longer period; that was the only time McGrath spoke to the registered representative about the customer’s account. Furthermore, McGrath reduced the registered representative’s commissions for purchases in the customer’s account, but this measure did not have the desired impact; the registered representative actually increased the number of purchases and frequency of short-term trading to offset the effects of the commission reduction until the customer closed the account after suffering losses of approximately $120,000.

McGrath failed to take any action against the registered representative based on his failure to comply with his instructions; among other things, McGrath never restricted the trading in the customer’s account, spoke to the customer, placed the registered representative on heightened supervision, recommended disciplinary measures against him to address these concerns, or spoke with the firm’s compliance department regarding the supervision of the registered representative. The firm allowed the registered representative to effect transactions in the customer’s account for months without obtaining a signed and completed new account form from the customer, and failed to enforce its review of active accounts as the WSPs required. The firm failed to send a required suitability questionnaire to the customer until almost a year after the account had been opened and suffered significant losses, failed to qualify his account as suitable for active trading and failed to perform a timely quarterly review of the account.

J.P. Turner & Company, LLC: Censured; Fined $20,000

James Edward McGrath (Principal): Fined $5,000; Suspended 10 business days in Principal capacity only

Krasner made unsuitable recommendations to a customer who was a retiree and inexperienced investor. 

Although the customer agreed to each of Krasner’s recommendations, Krasner employed a trading strategy that was not suitable for the customer’s particular financial situation. The customer had indicated in account opening documents that he had an investment objective of capital preservation and a low risk tolerance. 

Krasner recommended the use of margin to execute trades in the customer’s account and at times exposed the customer to inappropriate financial risk. Krasner never read the customer’s account opening documents, though they were available to him, and was unaware of the customer’s financial situation and risk tolerance, as stated in the account opening documents.

Krasner’s member firm’s database and computer platform that he used to place trades, as well as the account statements that were mailed to the customer each month, inaccurately indicated that the investment objective was speculation.  In his conversations with the customer, Krasner never confirmed the accuracy of the investment objective. Krasner employed a short-term and speculative trading strategy of short selling stock and using margin. Since Krasner was not fully aware of the customer’s stated financial condition, he based his recommendations on the erroneous view that the customer could absorb the high risks of these transactions. 

The customer frequently spoke with Krasner on the phone, gave Krasner express permission to execute the recommended trades and informed Krasner that he was willing to engage in some speculation. Furthermore, Krasner based his recommendations on his conversations with the customer and the firm’s inaccurate database, not the accurate financial information that was contained in the account opening documents. 

Krasner executed solicited trades in the customer’s account, while charging the account $51,790 in commissions and fees. Although several of the individual trades were profitable, including commissions, the customer’s account lost $54,160 in net value, dropping from a net equity value of $162,571 to $108,410.

The Firm failed to have reasonable grounds to believe that private placements offered by two entities pursuant to Regulation D were suitable for any customer.

The Firm began selling the offerings for one entity after its representatives visited the issuer’s offices to review records and meet with the issuers’ executives; the firm also received numerous third-party due diligence reports for these offerings but never obtained financial information about the entity and its offerings from independent sources, such as audited financial statements.

Despite the issuer’s assurances, the problems with its Regulation D offerings continued; the issuer repeatedly stated to the firm’s representatives that the interest and principal payments would occur within a few weeks, and the issuer made some interest payments but failed to pay substantial amounts of interest and principal owed to its investors, and these unfulfilled promises continued until the SEC filed its civil action and the issuer’s operations ceased.

In addition to ongoing delays in making payments to its investors, the firm received other red flags relating to the entity’s problems but continued to allow its brokers to sell the offering to their customers; in total, the firm’s brokers sold $11,759,798.01 of the offering to customers.

Despite the fact that the firm received numerous third-party due diligence reports for the other entities’ offering, it never obtained financial information about the issuer and its offerings from independent sources, such as audited financial statements, and although it received a specific fee related to due diligence purportedly performed in connection with each offering, the firm performed little due diligence beyond reviewing the private placement memoranda (PPM) for the issuer’s offerings. The firm’s representatives did not travel to the entity’s headquarters to conduct any due diligence for these offerings in person and did not see or request any financial information for the entity other than that contained in the PPM.

The Firm obtained a third-party due diligence report for one of the offerings after having sold these offerings for several months already; this report identified a number of red flags with respect to the offerings. Moreover, the firm should have been particularly careful to scrutinize each of the issuer’s offerings given the purported high rates of return but did not take the necessary steps, through obtaining financial information or otherwise, to ensure that these rates of return were legitimate, and not payable from the proceeds of later offerings, in the manner of a Ponzi scheme. Furthermore, the firm also did not follow up on the red flags documented in the third-party due diligence report; even with notice of these red flags, the firm continued to sell the offerings without conducting any meaningful due diligence.

The Firm failed to have reasonable grounds for approving the sale and allowing the continued sale of the offerings; even though the firm was aware of numerous red flags and negative information that should have alerted it to potential risks, the firm allowed its brokers to continue selling these private placements.The firm did not conduct meaningful due diligence for the offerings prior to approving them for sale to its customers; without adequate due diligence, the firm could not identify and understand the inherent risks of these offerings.The Firm failed to enforce reasonable supervisory procedures to detect or address potential red flags and negative information as it related to these private placements; the firm therefore failed to maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations.

Murillo recommended and effected excessive transactions in a customer’s account that were unsuitable in light of the customer’s financial situation, needs and investment objectives.

Murillo controlled and directed the trading in the customer’s account by recommending and executing all the transactions in the account. The customer was unable to evaluate Murillo’s recommendations, did not understand the meaning of “margin,” and was unable to exercise independent judgment concerning the transactions in the account due to his lack of investment knowledge and limited English skills; the customer trusted Murillo completely to make and execute recommendations in his account.

Murillo did not have a reasonable basis for believing that the volume of trading he recommended was suitable for the customer in light of information he knew about the customer’s financial circumstances and needs, and given the amount of commissions and fees the customer was charged; and as a result, the transactions Murillo recommended and executed were unsuitable, even if the investment objectives were speculative as reflected on the customer’s new account form. The customer told Murillo that he wanted a conservative retirement account set up because he was nearing retirement age and could not risk any losses with his funds; nevertheless, the new account forms listed the customer’s investment objective as speculation and his risk tolerance as aggressive.

The trades were excessive in number and resulted in excessive costs to the customer’s account, and the vast majority of the transactions in the customer’s account were effected through the use of margin and resulted in the customer incurring additional costs in the form of margin interest. In addition, Although the customer signed a pre-completed margin agreement, along with other pre-completed new account forms Murillo sent to him, the customer did not understand margin and did not realize that Murillo was effecting trades on his account on margin. Moreover, owing to the customer’s lack of investment knowledge and inability to decipher his monthly account statements, the customer was unaware that he had a margin balance and did not understand the risk of the margin exposure in his account; at one point, the customer’s account had a margin balance of approximately $106,818.52 while the account’s equity was approximately $67,479.98. The transactions on margin Murillo effected in the customer’s account were unsuitable for the customer in view of the size and nature of the account and the customer’s financial situation and needs.

National Securities failed to have reasonable grounds to believe that certain private placements offered pursuant to Regulation D were suitable for customers. Acting through Portes, as the firm’s Director of Alternative Investments/Director of Syndications, National failed to adequately enforce its supervisory procedures to conduct adequate due diligence as it relates to an offering. Portes and the firm became aware of multiple red flags regarding an offering, including liquidity concerns, missed interest payments and defaults, that should have put them on notice of possible problems, but the firm continued to sell the offering to customers. Acting through Portes, the Firm failed to enforce its supervisory procedures to conduct adequate due diligence relating to other offerings.

Portes reviewed the PPMs for these offerings and diligence reports others prepared, but the review was cursory.The due diligence reports noted significant risks and specifically provided that its conclusions were conditioned upon recommendations regarding guidelines, changes in the PPMs and heightened financial disclosure of affiliated party advances, but the firm did not investigate, follow up on or discuss any of these potential conflicts or risks with either the issuer or any third party. In addition, acting through Portes, the Firm failed to enforce reasonable supervisory procedures to detect or address potential “red flags” as related to these offerings; and the firm, acting through Portes, failed to maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations.

National Securities Corporation: Censured; Odered to pay a total of $175,000 in restitution to investors.

Matthew G. Portes  (Principal): Fned $10,000; Suspended from association with any FINRA member in any principal capacity only for 6 months.

Chima engaged in a pattern of unsuitable short-term trading and switching of unit investment trusts (UITs), closed-end funds (CEFs) and mutual funds in retired and/or disabled customer accounts without having reasonable grounds for believing that such transactions were suitable for the customers in view of the nature, frequency and size of the recommended transactions and in light of their financial situations, investment objectives, circumstances and needs. Some of the transactions were effected through excessive use of margin and without ensuring that customers received the maximum sales charge discount. In furtherance of his short-term trading strategy, Chima engaged in discretionary trading without prior written authorization, falsified customer account update documents and mismarked trade tickets for each of the customers’ accounts, stating that the orders were unsolicited when, in fact, they were solicited.

The transactions generated approximately $450,000 in commissions for Chima and his firm, and approximately $370,000 in losses to the customers; some customers also paid over $75,000 in margin interest. In numerous UIT purchases, none of which exceeded $250,000, Chima failed to apply the rollover discount to which each customer was entitled.

Chima caused his member firm’s books and records to be false in material respects, in that he provided false information on customer update forms for customers’ accounts, signed the forms certifying that they were accurate and submitted them to his firm.

In connection with the sale of investments in a film production company, Flowers made fraudulent misrepresentations and omitted to disclose material information. Flowers collected at least $92,000 from investors, falsely representing that he would use their funds to finance a film production business and promising exorbitant, guaranteed returns. Instead of investing the funds, Flowers misused $30,498 to repay other investors and pay for personal expenses without the investors’ knowledge, consent or authorization.

Flowers made recommendations to a customer to invest in private placement offerings that were unsuitable in light of the customer’s financial situation, investment objective and financial needs.

Flowers attempted to settle away customers’ complaints without his member firm’s knowledge or consent.

Flowers signed an attestation form for a firm acknowledging that email communications with the public must be sent through the firm’s email address and copied to the compliance department, but Flowers communicated with customers via unapproved, outside email accounts without his member firms’ knowledge or consent, and as a result of his outside communications, his member firms were unable to review his emails to firm customers. In addition, Flowers engaged in private securities transactions without providing prior written notice to, and receiving prior written approval from, his member firms.

The Firm failed to:

• have reasonable grounds to believe that a private placement an entity offered pursuant to Regulation D was suitable for any customer, after it received red flags that the entity had financial issues and was not timely making interest payments, but continued to sell the offering to customers;
• enforce a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations, and NASD and FINRA rules in connection with the sale of private placements;
• conduct adequate due diligence of the private placements or confirm that its representatives were doing their own due diligence;
• conduct adequate due diligence of private placements other entities offered; and
• enforce a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations, and NASD and FINRA rules in connection with the sale of the private placements the entities offered pursuant to Regulation D.

The Firm reviewed cursory private placement memoranda (PPMs) for the offerings but failed to investigate red flags or analyze third-party sources of information or take affirmative steps to ensure the information in the offering documents was accurate.

The Firm failed to preserve electronic communications in a non-rewritable, non-erasable or “WORM” format that complied with books and records requirements, and the firm used third-party software for storing and retaining electronic communications that did not comply with the requirements of SEC Rule 17a-4(f). Although the Firm was informed that its electronic storage medium was non-compliant but did not take adequate remedial action to retain email properly.

The Firm entered into an agreement with an entity to sell a private placement for which the firm’s brokers sold $1,415,940 of the private placement interests to customers, and the firm failed to create and maintain a reasonable supervisory system to detect and prevent sales practice violations in these transactions. The firm did not collect financial and other relevant information for the customers who purchased the private placement, and did not review these transactions to determine if the recommendations for the purchases were suitable for these customers.

Also, the firm failed to implement a supervisory system reasonably designed to review and retain electronic correspondence. The firm did not establish an email retention system that captured all of its brokers’ emails. The firm’s brokers were allowed to use email addresses using external domains, and the firm did not have the capability to review, capture and retain these emails.

Cambridge failed to have reasonable grounds to believe that a private placement offered pursuant to Regulation D was suitable for any customer.

Acting through Fincher, its Chief Compliance Officer and registered principal, the Firm failed to

• conduct adequate due diligence of the private placement offering before allowing its brokers to sell the security,
• maintain a supervisory system reasonably designed to achieve compliance with applicable securities laws and regulations, and
• enforce reasonable supervisory procedures to detect or address potential red flags as it related to the offering.

Fincher was the principal responsible for conducting due diligence on the offering and approved the security as a new product available for firm brokers to sell to their customers; he allowed the firm’s brokers to continue selling the security despite its ongoing failure to make overdue interest and principal payments. The Firm failed to have reasonable grounds for allowing the continued sale of the security even though the firm, through Fincher, was aware of numerous red flags concerning liquidity problems, delinquencies and defaults, but allowed its brokers to continue selling the security.

Cambridge Legacy Securities, L.L.C.:Censured; Ordered to pay $218,400 in restitution to customers. If the firm fails to provide FINRA with proof of restitution, it shall immediately be suspended from FINRA membership until such proof has been provided.

Tommy Edward Fincher: Fined $5,000; Suspended 6 months in Principal capacity only.