South Florida Arbitration & Litigation Lawyer Blog
FINRA Arbitration Attorney, Russell L. Forkey, Esq., Helping Customers Seek to Recover Losses from Loans made to Account Executives.
August, 2011:
Jared Austin Poe (CRD #4884505, Registered Representative, Marina Del Rey, California) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which he was fined $10,000, suspended from association with any FINRA member in any capacity for 18 months and ordered to pay restitution in the total amount of $125,000, plus interest. The fine and restitution must be paid either immediately upon Poe’s reassociation with a FINRA member firm following his suspension, or prior to the filing of any application or request for relief from any statutory disqualification, whichever is earlier. Without admitting or denying the findings, Poe consented to the described sanctions and to the entry of findings that he borrowed a total of $125,000 from an elderly customer of his member firm without seeking or obtaining his firm’s approval for any of these loans. The findings stated that Poe and the elderly customer memorialized the loans by executing a promissory note in which Poe promised to repay the $125,000 that he had borrowed; Poe has not repaid any portion of the loans. The findings also stated that Poe completed the firm’s annual sales questionnaire and falsely answered “no” in response to a question that asked whether he had received loans from any of his clients or family members who have accounts at the firm within the preceding 12 months. The findings also included that the firm terminated Poe and, on a Uniform Termination Notice for Securities Industry Registration (Form U5), reported that Poe had been under internal review for violating firm policy by borrowing money from a client; thereafter, Poe caused his Form U5 to be amended to include a comment addressing the internal review in which Poe stated, among other things, that the loan at issue was made by the elderly customer, who he had known since adolescence and served as a mentor and pseudo-grandfather. FINRA found that Poe had not known the customer since adolescence and had met the customer several years earlier when he had solicited him to become a client.
The suspension is in effect from July 18, 2011, through January 17, 2013. (FINRA Case #2010021867401).