FINRA barred former LPL Financial broker and Graysail Capital Vice President Rhett Douglas Bedwell while investigating allegations he used forged documentation to invest a customer's money in a Ponzi scheme.
According to AWC #2020067764001, a customer in 2020 filed a complaint against former LPL representative Rhett Bedwell (CRD #5664392), alleging that he moved the client's Individual Retirement Account (IRA) to a new administrator and used forged documents to invest the claimant's money in a Ponzi scheme, all without investor consent. When Bedwell failed to provide requested information to FINRA, the regulator barred him from the securities industry.
Although FINRA's report did not specify precisely what products or entities were involved in Bedwell's alleged Ponzi scheme investments, Bedwell's LinkedIn profile indicates he served as the Vice President of Investor Relations at Graysail Capital in 2019 and 2020, a since-defunct firm that is the subject of a lawsuit alleging fraud.
In July 2020, FINRA barred former Kestra Investment Services broker James Blake Daughtry after he failed to cooperate with an investigation into "potentially fraudulent and unauthorized" transactions involving retiree clients. A lawsuit filed on behalf of six such customers named Graysail Advisors, Small World Capital, and Graysail Advisors President/Chief Compliance Officer Jared Eakes as defendants, alleging that Daughtry, Eakes, and Smalls copied customer signatures from previous documents and pasted them onto other forms with the intent of fraudulently opening accounts at entities such as Equity Trust.
According to the investors' suit, once the funds were deposited with Equity Trust, they were again transferred to Small World or Graysail.
Meanwhile, Daughtry himself filed a lawsuit against Eakes alleging fraud and fraudulent deceit involving Graysail Capital.
Although FINRA's report references that Bedwell "used forged documentation to invest claimant's money in a Ponzi scheme," the regulator did not identify the name of any entities involved in this alleged Ponzi scheme.
If you have invested with former LPL Financial broker and Graysail Vice President of Investor Relations Rhett Bedwell or with any broker or financial adviser who used forgery to invest your funds without authorization in Equity Trust, Small World, or Graysail Advisors, and such an improper selling away event has proven harmful to your investments or interests, please call an experienced FINRA arbitration attorney at The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.