The following information is from FINRA’s website under “Disciplinary and Other FINRA Actions, January, 2013.” Kenneth Andrew Mauchin (CRD #2366345, Registered Principal, Sanford, Florida) was named a respondent in a FINRA complaint alleging that he misappropriated $23,750 from elderly customers’ accounts by converting their funds to cashier’s checks and depositing those checks into a bank […]

Securities Lawyer, Lars Soreide, of Soreide Law Group, is currently investigating Gramercy Securities, Inc. This brokerage has been alleged to have placed unsophisticated investors' money into unsuitable investments. There have been claims, for example, of a recent widow losing her entire net worth by investing in risky private placements. Some of these risky private placements […]

In a recent MoneyWatch article, Steve Vernon writes that investment fraud and financial abuse targeting the elderly is a major problem today, according to a recent survey by the Investor Protection Trust and Investor Protection Institute. The top three ways in which seniors are exploited are: Theft of diversion of funds or property by caregivers […]

Stephen Nietsch (CRD #3111082, Registered Representative, Boynton Beach, Florida) was barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity and ordered to pay $20,000, plus interest, in restitution to a customer. The sanctions were based on findings that Nietsch borrowed $20,000 from an elderly customer contrary to his member firm’s procedures prohibiting him from […]

Florida has determined to fight abuse and exploitation by enacting a specific civil cause of action for exploitation, but the Florida action applies to the exploitation of “vulnerable adults.” As a result, the attorney must be prepared to offer testimony on both prongs of the action and prove that his client is both a “vulnerable […]

Raymond James, FINRA ID # 11-03503 (Bradenton, FL, 8/21/2012) A split FINRA arbitration panel awarded $985,700, including triple damages, to an elderly customer on his misappropriation claim. This award against Paul David Arnold, and Raymond James and Associates, Inc., of Bradenton, Florida, involved the purchasing of an annuity, electronic transfers and conversion of funds of […]

 Joel William Carlson (CRD #2844760, Registered Representative, Vadnais Heights, Minnesota)  was barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. Carlson consented to the described sanction and to the entry of findings that he solicited his member firm’s customers to give him a total of at least $734,000, fraudulently misrepresenting to the customers that he would […]

In May, a FINRA arbitration panel fined Brookstone Securities Inc., $1 million over the sale of risky CMOs (collateralized mortgage obligations) and said they made “fraudulent misrepresentation and omissions of material fact in selling complex, esoteric and risky tranches of [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" […]

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