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February 02, 2017 at 10:53 AM
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority said Thursday that it expelled Phoenix-based Lawson Financial Corp. from the organization and barred CEO and President Robert Lawson from the securities industry due to fraud.
Lawson and others with his firm sold millions of dollars of municipal revenue bonds to clients, which were underwritten by LFC and related to an Arizona charter school and two assisted living facilities in Alabama — borrowers that Robert Lawson and LFC knew faced financial difficulties.
For the fraudulent transactions, Lawson transferred millions of dollars to the borrowers and associated parties from a deceased customer’s trust account, according to FINRA, in order to hide the borrowers’ financial conditions and the risks associated with the bonds.
When LFC clients bought the bonds, LFC and Lawson “hid the material fact that Lawson was improperly transferring millions of dollars from the trust account to various parties when the borrowers were not able to pay their operating expenses or required interest payments on the bonds,” according to FINRA.
In addition, the regulatory body found that Lawson and his wife Pamela, who was LFC’s chief operating officer, were co-trustees of the trust account — in violation of FINRA rules, since they acted as trustees and engaged in self-dealing with the trust account. Robert Lawson also misused client funds.
Robert Lawson was in the securities industry for 40 years, according to FINRA BrokerCheck. He had nine disclosures during this time, including payments of damages to clients of about $238,000 in 2009 and $295,000 in 2001.
