What You Must Know
- The previous dealer instructed the victims that they have been investing in bonds backed by HOA charges.
- He used their cash to pay for luxurious objects and a rustic membership membership, the jury discovered.
- He faces as much as 30 years in jail for fraud and cash laundering.
A former New York registered funding advisor faces a possible 30-year sentence after being convicted of misusing over $1 million in shopper and prospective-client funds to pay for luxurious objects, together with designer clothes and niknaks and a rustic membership membership.
A federal jury final week convicted Jeffrey Slothower, 46, founding father of funding advisory agency Battery Personal, of all three counts of an indictment charging him with wire fraud, funding advisor fraud and cash laundering in connection with a scheme to misappropriate purchasers’ property, the Justice Division introduced.
The decision in a Central Islip, New York, court docket adopted a three-day trial earlier than U.S. District Decide Gary R. Brown, the division mentioned, noting that Slothower faces as much as 30 years in jail when sentenced.
Breon Peace, U.S. legal professional for the Jap District of New York, and James Smith, assistant director-in-charge, FBI, New York Subject Workplace, introduced the decision.
“This case was about greed and betrayal of purchasers who trusted the defendant and thought their cash was safely invested with him,” Peace mentioned.
“Slothower tricked these purchasers so he may steal their cash and lavish himself with a brand new automobile, high-end clothes and jewellery, and a membership at an East Finish nation membership. Defending buyers from fraudsters just like the defendant has at all times been a precedence of this workplace and right now’s verdict underscores our resolve to vigorously prosecute those that enrich themselves on the expense of victims,” the prosecutor added.
The previous registered advisor and dealer was discovered to have orchestrated a scheme to misappropriate greater than $1 million from present and potential purchasers, based on the Justice Division.
Particularly, whereas working Battery Personal, Slothower solicited enterprise from “Sufferer-1″ and “Sufferer-2,” a California couple whose cash Slothower had managed at one other monetary companies agency the place he was beforehand employed.
(Slothower beforehand was affiliated with Merrill Lynch, Northwestern Mutual and Goldman Sachs, amongst different companies, based on the Monetary Trade Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck database.)
Slothower promised the couple he may beat any charge of return they have been receiving, with out market danger. In 2017, he supplied to speculate Sufferer-1’s cash into what Slothower described as bonds backed by house owner’s affiliation charges, or “HOA bonds,” which might pay an 8% return, based on prosecutors.