The State of Arizona indicted former AXA Advisors, LLC broker Howard Milton Price III, charging him with three felonies, including fraud and theft, for allegedly stealing $475,000 from the IRA retirement accounts of several former clients by means of material misrepresentation, conversion, and engaging in a scheme to defraud.
Arizona v Price, Case #82-SGJ-262
A previous cease-and-desist order from the Arizona Corporation Commission's Securities Division alleged that Price, who was most recently registered with AXA Advisors in Scottsdale, engaged in the fraud from 2013 through 2017 by raising $630,900.90 from four Arizona investors through his company, Howard Price Wealth Management, LLC, by offering and selling unregistered securities and/or providing unlicensed investment advisory services.
The findings stated that Howard Price misrepresented to his clients that their funds would roll over into IRAs at AXA Advisors, LPL Financial, and/or E*Trade Securities LLC, when no such transactions occurred.
Price allegedly provided a customer with a fabricated or fraudulent investment report misrepresenting that the investor's IRA funds were invested in a brokerage account, even though neither AXA Advisors nor E*Trade provided the customers with any account statement (because, according to the Commission, Price had not invested the funds with either firm, as promised).
For example, although one client repeatedly requested financial statements, Price reportedly failed to produce them, and furthermore told a client that a $40,000 promissory note had an annual percentage of 25%, paid monthly (this return was not paid).
The Arizona Corporation Commission found, instead, that Price never opened and funded these purported brokerage accounts and, instead, used a "substantial portion" of the funds on personal expenses unrelated to the investments.
Price's FINRA BrokerCheck file (CRD #4650960) lists three prior settled customer disputes from 2012-13, alleging misrepresentation, misrepresentation, and failure to disclose material facts related to variable annuity and life insurance policy sales, and that Price's recommendation of the variable life insurance policy was unsuitable.
If you have invested with Howard Milton Price or with any broker or financial adviser who has fraudulently pretended to invest your funds in IRA or other brokerage accounts, and instead has converted, misappropriated, or otherwise misused your investment for personal expenses, thus causing you to incur losses and damages, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.