After sanctioning former Independent Financial Group broker Stewart Paxton Ginn for churning $2.2 million from IFG customers, FINRA has fined and suspended IFG Vice President of Supervision Richard Mireles of San Diego, CA for failing to reasonably respond to red flags about Ginn's excessive trading in customer accounts.
According to the report, Richard Randy Mireles (CRD #5288651) failed to adequately respond to red flags of excessive trading in customer accounts, despite a lower level supervisor who had been reviewing trade alerts bringing these concerns to Mireles's attention.
FINRA claims that instead of further investigating or responding to the excessive trading, Mireles directed the lower level supervisor not to review the series of trades placed within an account for potentially excessive trading, despite the multiple red flags pointing to potential misconduct.
In the end, regulators found that Ginn's excessive trading caused customers to pay more than $2.2 million in total trading costs, including sales fees, and incurred realized losses totalling over $2 million. FINRA noted that at least one customer was elderly with diminished capacity due to Alzheimer's disease.
If you invested with Independent Financial Group, its broker Stewart Paxton Ginn, or another investment adviser or representative under the supervision of Richard Mireles or another supervisor who failed to adequately respond to red flags, such as excessive trading or churning in your account, and this unauthorized and/or unsuitable trading activity has proven harmful to your investments or resulted in account losses, 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.