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 market has delisted UDF IV shares. The UDF REITs have been in trouble for nearly a year. A hedge fund with a short position in UDF IV shares last December claimed the company had been operating as a Ponzi scheme for years. The FBI raided the REIT's headquarters in a suburb of Dallas in February. At that time, the NASDAQ stopped the trading of UDF IV shares at $3.20, which was down 81% over the previous year. During the last few months, UDF IV has publicly claimed that it was working to file its 2015 annual reports and its last three quarterly reports with the SEC [...]

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 $5,000 and suspended from the securities industry for sixty days. Ferarra had provided administrative support to a financial adviser who was responsible for the targeted client's account. In November 2011, Ferrara received an email instruction forwarded by the adviser to process a wire transfer from a client's account to a third party bank account. They did not realize that the instruction was sent by an impostor who hacked the email account of the client's authorized person. According to Morgan Stanley's rules, Ferrara should have contacted the authorized person to verbally confirm the transfer instruction and record the event on the firm's internal records, but she [...]

Gregory Bauer Barred By FINRA

FINRA barred former Waddell & Reed Inc. broker Gregory Bauer from the securities industry for making over $400,000 in unauthorized withdrawals from his parents' accounts. Bauer, was registered with Waddell & Reed from 2004 to 2013. According to the settlement, for numerous years at the firm, Bauer was the registered representative serving his parents accounts. His parents were identified as WB and CB in the FINRA document. Without notifying them or getting their permission, Bauer forged their signatures on withdrawal request forms he submitted, according to the settlement. “Several of the forged withdrawal requests caused securities to be sold from his parents' accounts and caused checks to be issued to WB and CB,” according to the settlement. “Bauer, however, intercepted the checks that had been mailed to his parents' home, deposited the checks into his personal bank account, and used the funds for his personal expenses without permission.” After leaving Waddell & Reed, Gregory Bauer joined [...]

Jeffrey Howell Barred From Securities Industry

Jeffrey Howell, formerly a broker with UBS Group AG's wealth management unit was barred from the securities industry for giving a client faux weekly account statements over a period of six years, according to FINRA.Howell sent these reports from September 2008 to November 2014, overvaluing the account by as much as $3 million, according to a settlement notice accepted by FINRA. He is believed to have changed three UBS account statements to conceal the inaccuracies in the reports.Jeffrey Howell created and sent the client over 300 weekly "Stock Tracking Reports" that were supposed to reflect the value of the customer's portfolio but actually misstated it in amounts ranging from $289,000 in September 2008 to about $3 million in November 2014, according to the notice. Howell used his personal e-mail account to send some of the false reports, leaving UBS with inaccurate books and records, FINRA said.According to FINRA's BrokerCheck, UBS terminated Howell in 2014, and he is no longer registered with [...]