Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
By 
June 05, 2020 at 12:44 PM
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority suspended an ex-Cetera broker from association with any FINRA member in any capacity for four months for making transactions in a client’s accounts based on instructions given to him by the customer’s son-in-law, according to FINRA.
Without admitting or denying the findings, Robert Silverman signed a letter of acceptance, waiver and consent May 15 in which he agreed to the suspension and to pay a $10,000 fine. FINRA accepted the letter Wednesday.
Cetera and Fawn Lee, an attorney at the New York law firm Ellenoff Grossman & Schole, who represented Silverman, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
Silverman was associated with Cetera Financial Specialists from June 2004 until July 2019, according to the FINRA letter. On July 2, 2019, the firm filed a Form 5 Termination Notice disclosing it discharged Silverman that day because he “violated the firm’s policy by accepting account instructions, including withdrawal requests, from a non-client individual without written authority from the client.”
The termination was included as a disclosure on Silverman’s profile at FINRA’s BrokerCheck website. In a separate disclosure, he was the subject of a customer dispute Sept. 24, 2019, by the same client in which the customer alleged Silverman “failed to perform his fiduciary duty by accepting withdrawal paperwork from her son-in-law, purportedly with her signature and on her behalf for deposit to a bank account in her name, which she had not signed.” The client requested damages of $229,669.87. It is still pending and Silverman is no longer registered as a broker or RIA, according to BrokerCheck.
