Former Cabot Lodge Securities, LLC Chief Compliance Officer Albert Akerman is suing firm owner Jacob Frydman along with the related entity United Realty Advisors, L.P., wholesaler of the United Realty Trust Inc. non-traded real estate investment trust (REIT), for breach of contract and fiduciary duty, and tortious interference in filing a false and defamatory termination form with FINRA.
Specifically, Akerman alleges that Cabot Lodge fired him after he attempted to report several instances of misconduct at the firm—including some outright violations of law—to FINRA. Akerman claims he was dismissed for "his reluctance to follow [Frydman's] mismanagement directives and overlook other violative actions."
The alleged misconduct at Cabot Lodge took place from March through October of 2014; the firm discharged Akerman in December.
According to FINRA BrokerCheck documents, the United Realty Trust REIT was formerly associated with broker-dealer Allied Beacon Partners Inc., which FINRA barred from the industry after a failure to timely pay a $1.6 million FINRA arbitration award levied for the sale of fraudulent private placements. In 2012, Frydman announced his REIT would move from Allied Beacon to Cabot Lodge.
At the time of that move, Cabot Lodge was described as "a new financial services affiliate of Allied Beacon Partners Inc."
The report states that one year later, FINRA barred Allied Beacon from the industry and a number of that firm's brokers moved to Cabot Lodge, including Akerman and former Allied Beacon President, CEO, CCO and CFO Robert Philip Mather, who now also works at Cabot Lodge.
Mather was one of three former Allied Beacon executives named—along with Richard Landi and Roger Leibowitz—as part of a FINRA panel's order to pay $1.05 million, plus interest, for a high risk private placement scam that turned out to be a Ponzi scheme.
If you have invested with Cabot Lodge Securities brokers or financial advisers such as Robert Mather in the United Realty Trust REIT or another high risk private placement that turned out to be a Ponzi or other fraudulent financial scheme, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for investigation and consultation.