A National Securities Arbitration & Investment Fraud Law Firm
Mark F. Augusta
CRD# 1333913
Silver Law Group is investigating potential customer complaints against Del Mar, California-based Hilltop Securities Inc. broker Mark F Augusta after a former client was issued a large monetary award settlement.
Robert H. Keller
CRD#2168444
Silver Law Group is reviewing former Beverly Hills, California-based Morgan Stanley broker Robert H. Keller after he was discharged for trading in low priced securities and inaccurately designating trades as unsolicited.
Donald A. Devito
CRD# 1096364
Silver Law Group is investigating former Albany, New York-based Wells Fargo broker Donald A Devito after multiple FINRA complaints alleging unauthorized trading and unsuitable investment recommendations.
Paul A. Falcon
CRD# 2464566
Silver Law Group is reviewing customer complaints against Boca Raton office of Aegis Capital Corp. broker Paul A. Falcon that alleges he exercised unauthorized trading in client brokerage accounts, provided unsuitable investment recommendations and engaged in excessive trading
Daniel H Morris
(CRD#1046760)
Silver Law Group is reviewing former Connecticut-based Oppenheimer & Co broker Daniel H Morris after a customer filed a $900,000 FINRA arbitration against him.
Shadi T Barakat
CRD#5031281
Silver Law Group is investigating former New York, New York-based AEGIS Capital Corp broker Shadi T. Barakat after multiple clients filed FINRA complaints alleging excessive trading and churning. This complaint was settled in 2015 for $360,000.
Though he’s currently not registered with a firm, Demitrios Hallas may never be allowed to work as a broker again. According to the SEC, from March 2014 to May 2016, Hallas violated a variety of anti-fraud provisions by recommending unsuitable investments, not performing his due diligence on these products, and misappropriating thousands of dollars.
The SEC complaint alleges that Hallas bought and sold daily leveraged Exchange-Traded Funds and Notes for several customers, even though they weren’t suitable investments. In addition, Hallas did not fully understand how these products worked or the risks involved. While accumulating $128,000 in fees and commissions for himself and his firm, his customers lost around $150,000 in total.
A Reuters investigation team published a story earlier this year documenting high-risk brokers and brokerage firms using bulk data it compiled. Silver Law Group continues to investigate claims against these brokerage firms.
FINRA requires brokers to disclose 23 types of incidents that might give investors concern, such as regulatory sanctions, court and arbitration judgments and bankruptcies. FINRA then publishes these disclosures on its BrokerCheck website. Investors can then search the backgrounds of these brokers but cannot examine the data from a big-picture level.
According to the story, Reuters obtained bulk FINRA data from researchers at the Columbia University Law School Datalab and use the information to compile a list of 48 brokerage firms with the highest percentage of incidents.
Christopher Robert Hickman will not be able to resume working as a broker until the middle of November. It will be then that his five-month suspension will come to an end. The penalty came from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) after the agency reported that Hickman “engaged in an unsuitable pattern of short-term trading of unit investment trusts (UITs).”
FINRA found that with six customers, Hickman recommended that they buy UITs and then sell them within a year, even though the UITs had maturity dates of 24 months or longer. In fact, the average time the customers held the UITs was just 136 days. Hickman also reportedly recommended that with the money from the sale of these UITs, his customers should buy another UIT with the same objectives. In total, the six customers lost about $116,000.
Silver Law Group is investigating St. Augustine Florida-based D.H. Hill Securities, LLLP (CRD# 41528) broker Charles T. Stevens (CRD# 1698058) after FINRA sanctioned D.H. Hill Securities over misconduct concerning public non-traded REITs.
Stevens’ runs his own St. Augustine, Florida-based D.H. Hill Securities office under the moniker St. Johns Financial Planning. St. Johns Financial Planning and Stevens hold themselves out as an independent agency specializing in retirement and estate markets that has been in business in the St. Augustine, Florida area for the past twenty-five (25) years, according to Stevens’ and his firm’s website.
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