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Questar Advisor Allegedly Sold Fraudulent Securities

The Frankowski Firm is investigating complaints regarding and the termination of former Questar Capital Corporation advisor Kevin Wanner. The complaints allege that The North Dakota Securities Department issued a cease and desist order claiming that Wanner sold time certificate of deposit securities purporting to represent an investment in an FDIC insured interest bearing account and further misrepresented to the investors that their funds would be deposited with the FDIC member financial institutions represented. Instead, the funds were deposited into accounts owned and controlled by Wanner for his own purpose. Subsequently, on December 31, 2015, the NDSD revoked Wanner’s securities license in the state. On January 11, 2016, FINRA permanently barred Wanner form the securities industry. Wanner was barred from engaging in the business of insurance and from withdrawing any moneys from any banking or financial accounts. The order alleges that two people were given fraudulent certificates of deposit which could not be authenticated by the banks listed on the documents. Warner's alleged [...]

By |February 17th, 2016|FINRA, Fraud, Press Releases & News|
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FINRA Bars Two Advisers Following Broker Fraud

FINRA has barred two Buffalo, New York advisers, Timothy S. Dembskyi and Walter F. Grenda, from the securities industry for broker fraud in relation to the sale of a hedge fund, the Prestige Wealth Management Fund, LP. Dembski and Grenda's misconduct occurred while they were employed with Mid Atlantic Capital Corporation. FINRA discovered that Dembski and Grenda made material misrepresentations and omissions to make investors think that the fund was a "growth" fund that would be centered around a computer algorithm that automatically included risk protections and stop-losses to limit losses in the fund. However, in actuality, the fund was a highly speculative investment, the fund's Chief Investment Officer had complete control over investments made, and it was not obligated to follow the computer algorithm. In its last month that it was traded, the fund lost more than eighty percent of its value. Brad Bennett, FINRA's Executive Vice President and Chief of Enforcement, said, "In 2015, FINRA barred nearly 500 [...]

By |February 11th, 2016|FINRA, Fraud, Press Releases & News|
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Broker Lies About Charging $11M In Commissions For Nontraded REITs and BDCs

FINRA charged a broker for lying to a Native American tribe about the $11 million in commissions he charged when he sold the tribe $190 million in nontraded real estate investment trusts and business development companies. Between June 2011 and January 2015, broker Gopi Krishna Vungarala “regularly lied to his customer, a Native American tribe, regarding investments he recommended,” according to the FINRA complaint. Vungarala served as the unnamed tribe's registered representative as well as its treasury investment manager, according to the complaint. He “fraudulently induced the tribe to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in nontraded REITs and BDCs, without revealing he and his firm received commissions for the sales (usually 7%) or the availability of certain volume discounts.” Also according to the complaint, the tribe bought $190.4 million of illiquid REITs and BDCs and were charged $11.4 million in commissions, which went to his broker-dealer Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments. Mr. Vungarala was paid $9.6 million – or 84.3% - of those [...]

By |February 9th, 2016|FINRA, Fraud|
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Former Wedbush Securities Broker Defrauds Elderly Customer

  In July 2014, Michael Winegar, formerly a broker with Wedbush  Securities, allegedly convinced an elderly customer to pay him $100,000. Winegar told the 85-year-old customer that he would use the funds to create an independent advisory firm through which Winegar would supposedly satisfy the $100,000 debt by providing the customer with free investment advice over the next four years. Winegar never established an independent advisory firm. In fact, Winegar was planning on retiring from the securities industry at the time of the agreement. After receiving the $100,000, Winegar sold his securities business to another Wedbush representative and left the industry. As part of the sale, Winegar entered into a non-compete agreement that prevented him from providing investment advice to his former Wedbush customers, including the elderly customer from whom Winegar had received the $100,000. Winegar used the customer's money for his own personal use, including paying off his daughter's student loan debt and his own credit card bills. He [...]

By |February 4th, 2016|Broker Check, FINRA, Fraud, Press Releases & News|
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