FINRA suspended former J.P. Morgan Securities LLC broker and banker Paul DeFilippis and fined him $5,000 for causing the unauthorized withdrawal of an elderly client's funds, and subsequent deposit of those funds into an account in DeFilippis' name at a rival bank.
According to the investigation, DeFilippis served as a personal banker for a 90-year-old client whose health and mental condition were failing. The findings state that at some point in 2011, the elderly man began taking money out of his accounts to give to a younger woman with a criminal record.
The report states that DeFilippis became concerned that his senior client was giving money to this woman and, with his customer's consent, arranged for a friend to serve as co-trustee and to remove $264,000 from the JP Morgan bank account to hold elsewhere, at a third-party bank.
Investigators found that when DeFilippis opened this new account, he put the account in his own name—not the client's—and subsequently deposited the $264,000 (less $2,000 in cash) into the other bank account, with the elderly client as the death beneficiary.
FINRA also charged DeFilippis with failing to establish a trust account or otherwise protect the elderly customer's interest in the new account, suspending him for two years.
If you have invested with Paul DeFilippis, JP Morgan or with any broker whose establishment of an investment or banking account in the financial professional's name (as opposed to yours) and transfer of funds have come at the expense of your financial interests, and this move has proven harmful to your investments, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for investigation and consultation.