Joshua Albert Galiani, Pelham Manor, New York

FINRA Negligent Supervision and Selling Away Arbitration Attorney, Russell L. Forkey, Esq.

August, 2011:

Joshua Albert Galiani (CRD #2864225, Registered Representative, Pelham Manor, New York) was barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. The sanction was based on findings that Galiani engaged in an investment strategy that resulted in a principal loss of $662,108 in an elderly customer’s accounts and provided fictitious account documents to the customer to hide the substantial losses in the account. The  findings stated that Galiani made material false oral representations to the customer concerning the value of his investments and repeatedly told the customer to disregard the confirmations and statements sent to him by Galiani’s member firm. The findings also stated that Galiani claimed that the majority of the customer’s money was held in a third account, which he described to the customer as an institutional account that was not reflected on documents sent by the firm. The findings also included that the customer subsequently demanded that Galiani provide him with statements for the institutional account; Galiani created and provided the customer with fictitious firm account summaries that overstated the customer’s actual holdings at the firm by approximately $600,000.  FINRA found that on the same date, Galiani created and provided the customer with a fictitious account statement for the institutional account reflecting a purported value of $682,861.55. FINRA also found that the institutional account was a complete fabrication by Galiani; no such account existed and the account number listed on the institutional account statement was related to a closed account previously held by one of Gialani’s relatives. (FINRA Case #2009017619001).