Regulator alleges misconduct by brokers
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- March
- 12
A regulator wants to take enforcement action against a former investment broker from Pleasantville who allegedly lost more than $18,600 in a customer’s account by making an unauthorized stock transaction.
Thomas Joseph Downs, a former broker at Westrock Advisors Inc., purchased 10,000 shares of the medical technology company Cryocor Inc. at $5.25 a share without the customer’s consent in August 2007, according to a complaint from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
Thirteen days later, Downs sold the stock for $3.47 a share, triggering the loss for the customer and earning $420 in commissions for himself, the complaint said. The complaint added that Downs has repeatedly failed to respond to its requests for information from FINRA. Downs could not be reached for comment.
In other action by FINRA, Matthew John King Jr. has been fined $10,000 and suspended for one year.
FINRA said that King, an investment broker from New Rochelle, falsified variable annuity policy applications for customers in 2004 and 2005 while he was employed at S.W. Bach & Co.
The misconduct involved representing that the customers had “signed the applications in the proposed state of issue when they had not, and by representing that the customers had accounts with his member firm for at least six months when they did not,” FINRA said.
King could not be reached for comment.
In another case, Israel I. Echi of Mount Vernon was fined $5,000 and suspended for one year for “willful failure to disclose information” about a misdemeanor record on an application for registration in the securities industry, FINRA said. He had applied to be registered as an investment products representative at Chase Investment Services in 2007, but doesn’t currently work in the industry, FINRA added. Echi could not be reached for comment.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, March 12th, 2009 at 6:15 pm by Jay Loomis.
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