Leader of Staten Island Boiler Room Scam Fined $9.3 Million
Right before Christmas, in a Brooklyn, NY courtroom, John Desantis was found to have “fraudulently solicited more than $9 million from 300 investors in 40 states while he owned the Staten Island-based company, Premier Links, where he operated as an unregistered broker-dealer from December 2005 to August 2012,” as reported by SILive.com. He and his […]
Gregory Dean And Donald Fowler Charged By SEC
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Ash Narayan Banned For Defrauding Pro Athletes
Former financial adviser Ash Narayan agreed to be barred from associating with brokerage or advisory firms to settle regulators’ allegations that he secretly received nearly $2 million from companies that he invested his professional athlete clients in for at least five years. Narayan additionally placed clients in unsuitable private investments and misrepresented himself as a […]
In for a Penny, In for More Than a Pound
Many people follow the stock market as a hobby. Some of them invest in “penny stocks,” which are stocks that are not listed on exchanges like the NYSE or NASDAQ. Instead they are listed on the pink sheets or the over the counter bulletin and trade for under $5 per share. Brokers do not generally […]
FINRA Files Complaint Against Dawn Bennett
FINRA filed a complaint against Dawn Bennett for failing to testify in its investigation of possible fraud related to her clothing company. Bennett did not appear for testimony on four different occasions between April and September of this year, violating FINRA’s rules, according to FINRA’s complaint. The charges come roughly a year after the regulator […]
Learning a Lesson from Wells Fargo
In early September 2016, Wells Fargo was fined $185 million for opening up more than two million accounts under existing customers’ names, without those customers knowing about it, all in pursuit of the mighty dollar. It led to the firing of 5,300 employees. Wells Fargo’s CEO, John Stumpf, was denied his severance package after stepping […]
Levi David Lindemann Receives 6-Year Sentence For Ponzi Scheme
Levi David Lindemann, a Minnesota investment advisor, received a six-year prison sentence for stealing from clients and operating a Ponzi scheme, according to the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Lindemann was sentenced to 74 months imprisonment by a U.S. District Court, having pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal mail fraud and money-laundering charges. He was the […]
They Took the Money and Ran: Identifying Stockbroker Fraud and Negligence
Everyone knows the name Bernie Madoff; he’s the man whose Ponzi scheme defrauded investors out of $65 billion, a scheme considered the largest act of financial fraud in history. What many investors do not realize, however, is that a Ponzi scheme is only one kind of broker fraud. The truth is investors throughout the country […]
SEC Hits UDF With Wells Notice
The Frankowski Firm, LLC currently represents multiple investors who have invested in troubled United Development Funding REITs. Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Wells notice against the Texas company, which indicates that the SEC has made a preliminary determination to potentially recommend an enforcement action against it. Meanwhile, the NASDAQ stock […]
Debra Ferrara Suspended For Fraudulent Wire Transfer
Debra Ferrara, a former client administrator at Morgan Stanley, was fined and suspended by FINRA for fraudulently transferring a total of $108,680 out of a client’s account to third party bank accounts and for falsifying records. Morgan Stanley terminated Ferrara in December 2011 for falsifying information recorded in its books. Ferrara agreed to be fined […]