After a customer’s complaint of forgery and unauthorized trades to her account and false sales confirmations, both Raymond James Financial and Provenance Wealth Advisors discharged him. The client requested damages in the amount of $38,725.00, and the case was settled for $60,000.
Because these allegations were listed in his Form U5 after his discharge, FINRA’s Office of Fraud Detection and Market Intelligence reportedly opened an investigation into the matter. Pastor agreed to give on-the-record testimony under oath to the investigating body. During his testimony, he denied providing false authorizations to the client, which were intended to conceal reversing the unauthorized trading. Pastor’s testimony was found to be false when discussing these allegations.
Pastor denied the allegations in the customer dispute record to FINRA and stated in his broker comment that: “The client thoroughly was aware of the position and status of her account and at no time did Pastor forge or improperly create any non-authentic documents,” and he “believes that the client was simply confused or had a complete misunderstanding of what had occurred.” These statements are contrary to the investigation findings, and as a result, FINRA barred Pastor indefinitely.
FINRA issued a letter of Acceptance, Waiver & Consent, in which Pastor neither admitted nor denied the findings. Pastor signed the letter, accepting the indefinite bar from any association with any FINRA member broker.
Before this incident, Pastor had no prior disciplinary actions or employer discharges on his record.
An additional customer complaint filed on 1/23/2019 alleges that Pastor misrepresented a mutual fund account, and that the customer did not authorize an insurance premium payout from her account. This claim is currently pending, and the customer is requesting damages of $46,995.40.
Did You Invest With Stefan Pastor?
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