10 Worst Financial Advisors in America: 2023

2. Brent Seaman

Allegation: Church Scam

The SEC in July charged Brent Seaman of Naples, Florida, and several entities he managed with fraudulently raising about $35 million from at least 60 investors through an unregistered securities offering, which the SEC described as a Ponzi scheme.

“Many of these investors were elderly, retired and connected to a Naples church where Seaman was an active member,” the SEC said.

Seaman consented to a bifurcated settlement, without admitting or denying the commission’s allegations and subject to court approval, the SEC said. He will be barred from serving as an officer or director of any SEC-reporting company.

In 2022 tweets on X, formerly Twitter, Seaman posted photos of himself traveling with his wife on what appears to be a private jet and declared his love for her and for four children. He also tweeted last year that “the only way to do great work is to love what you do!”

(Credit: Brent Seaman Facebook)

3. Douglas Hawkins

Charge: Fraud

A former advisor and certified financial planner based in Lexington, Kentucky, who acted as a minister on the side, was sentenced in May to 10 years in prison for investment advisor fraud, securities fraud and mail fraud, according to the Justice Department and court documents.

Douglas Hawkins, also an attorney, plans to appeal the verdict and sentence, according to court records.

While acting as financial advisor, Hawkins, who was ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution, encouraged clients to invest in real estate-related securities, ThinkAdvisor previously reported, citing court documents and Justice Department information. Clients invested more than $2 million.

Hawkins withheld from clients that many of the properties were uninhabitable, had difficult rent collection and frequently encountered theft and vandalism, according to the allegations. Nor did he disclose that the invested funds would be used to pay other investors and to buy a Harley-Davidson for an employee, authorities said.

4. Christopher W. Burns

Charges: Fraud, Money Laundering

The Justice Department in April charged a missing former Georgia advisor, suspected in a $10 million Ponzi scheme, with multiple counts of wire fraud, mail fraud and money laundering.

The previously registered broker and investment advisor, Christopher W. Burns of Berkeley Lakes, Georgia, went missing in 2020 after allegations arose that he scammed around 100 investors. The FBI has said he went missing the day before he was to turn over business documents to the SEC.

A federal grand jury charged Burns with 10 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud and four counts of money laundering this year; he had been charged with another mail fraud count in 2020.

The SEC alleges he sold more than $10 million in fraudulent promissory notes to investors from 2017 until 2020. Burns, 41, is wanted by the FBI.

5. Randall Brian Kiefner

Charge: Possessing Child Pornography

Randall Brian Kiefner, a former broker with Morgan Stanley and Charles Schwab, pleaded not guilty in April after his arrest in Florida on 21 counts of possessing, controlling, viewing and/or depicting child pornography, according to the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office.

Seminole County Circuit Court records indicate Kiefner signed a plea agreement in December in which he pleaded no contest to 20 counts of possessing material depicting sexual conduct by a child, and agreed to a more than six-year sentence.

In November, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority arbitration panel ordered Kiefner to pay Morgan Stanley $1.44 million in a separate matter related to his move to the wirehouse from Schwab in 2019. He was fired a month after joining Morgan Stanley for violating the firm’s transition policy. Also this year, an arbitration panel awarded Kiefner $1.5 million from Morgan Stanley, which he had sued, alleging breach of contract and defamation.

Credit: mugshots.zone

6. Edward B. Woolworth Jr.

Charge: Strangulation

A Stifel advisor’s former girlfriend and client sued the broker-dealer in October, alleging the advisor strangled her in a drunken rage after years of physical and emotional abuse. The advisor, Edward Baker Woolworth Jr., was charged with second-degree strangulation in May 2022, according to FINRA’s BrokerCheck.

"On November 17, 2022, I was granted admission into a pretrial program in Connecticut as authorized under CGS Sec. 46b-38a. My next court date is on May 16, 2024. On that date it is expected that my charges will be dismissed pursuant to CGS Sec. 54-142a,” Woolworth commented in his FINRA record.

Christine Lenzo (aka Krysia Lenzo) alleged in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in Manhattan that Stifel failed to warn her of Woolworth’s history of abuse while permitting her to help him solicit clients at the firm’s expense.

(Credit: Shutterstock)

7. Jason J. Eaton

Charge: Attempted Murder

Jason J. Eaton, charged in Vermont in November with shooting three college students of Palestinian descent, worked as a financial advisor from time to time over two decades. He faces three charges for attempted second-degree murder, according to reports.

Vice News, citing social media posts and Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) records, reported that Eaton, 48 when arrested, had worked as an advisor in Vermont and New York at various times since 2002.

FINRA’s BrokerCheck shows Jason James Eaton worked at five firms over those years, including Cuso Financial Services in Williston, Vermont, from Jan. 17 until Nov. 10 this year. The three young men were shot in Burlington on Nov. 25.

Eaton’s past engagements included stints at TD Ameritrade and Edward Jones in New York state, according to FINRA, which lists him as a previously registered broker and investment advisor. ThinkAdvisor sister publication Credit Union Times reported that Eaton was fired from Cuso 17 days before the 20-year-old students were shot, citing a Cuso spokesperson as saying his employment was terminated on Nov. 8.

“We are horrified by the shooting and are cooperating with law enforcement as they investigate. We have no further comment,” the spokesperson told the publication, which noted that law enforcement authorities were investigating the shootings as potential hate crimes.

Eaton pleaded not guilty to attempted murder charges and was ordered held without bond, Reuters reported last month. VTDigger reported on Dec. 13 that Eaton’s lawyers agreed to drop their challenge to holding him without bail.

Credit: Burlington Police Department

8. John Poulos

Charge: Femicide

A former Vanguard Group broker, John Poulos of Colleyville, Texas, was charged in January with femicide and obstruction of justice in connection with his girlfriend’s killing in Bogota, Colombia, according to news reports and information from U.S. industry groups.

He reportedly met Valentina Trespalacios on a dating app. In September, he told a judge he was innocent despite security footage implicating him and evidence that items he allegedly entered Colombia with were found in a municipal garbage receptacle along with her body, The City Paper in Colombia reported.

Poulos could face 60 years in prison if convicted, according to the publication.

In July, the CFP Board permanently revoked Poulos’ right to use its certification marks.

FINRA BrokerCheck lists him as a previously registered broker and financial advisor and notes he was charged with aggravated femicide and manipulation and concealment of evidence outside the U.S. in January. Vanguard fired him that month.

9. Anthony D. Turner

Charges: Murder, Rape, Burglary

Several court appearances are scheduled for January for ex-broker Anthony Duwayne Turner, charged with felony murder and first-degree residential burglary in the slaying of his ex-girlfriend and former colleague, Bank of America-Merrill executive Michelle Avan, in 2021.

Authorities allege he entered Avan’s home on Aug. 3, 2021, killed her and left the following day.

Turner was a BofA Securities broker in Los Angeles from 2019 to 2022 after working several years for Merrill Lynch, according to his FINRA BrokerCheck record.

Among other proceedings, he is scheduled for a pretrial conference in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Jan. 4 on murder, burglary and forcible rape charges, according to information on a court calendar.

Turner, of Westchester, California, was arrested three days after allegedly killing Avan, and he soon was released on $2 million bail, Los Angeles authorities told ThinkAdvisor at the time.

(Credit: Los Angeles Sentinel/File Photo)

10. Keith T. Ashley

Charges: Murder, Fraud

Keith Todd Ashley, a former Parkland Securities broker in Texas, was accused of murdering a client he was stealing from and staging the death to look like a suicide.

Ashley filed notice this year that he plans to appeal his 2022 federal conviction on wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud and a gun charge related to the client’s death, and his lawyer told ThinkAdvisor in August the appeal outcome could decide whether a state murder case moves forward against the barred ex-broker. He was sentenced to life in prison on the federal charges in August.

A U.S. appellate court recently gave Ashley until Jan. 16 to file an opening brief in his appeal. His attorney in the federal case, James P. Whalen, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking status information on the cases. The Dallas County district attorney’s office didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking a status update on the state case.

Whalen previously told ThinkAdvisor authorities “overreached” in sentencing Ashley to life in prison on federal charges that, unlike the state case, didn’t include a murder allegation. The federal charges wouldn’t normally result in a life sentence, the lawyer said.

Ashley had been under investigation for an alleged Ponzi scheme when police charged him in November 2020 with fatally shooting his client, James “Jim” Seegan.

Seegan’s wife and found him with a gunshot wound in his head and a purported suicide note nearby, but an investigation found Ashley had incapacitated and murdered him to take control of his finances, according to police in Carrollton, Texas.

Credit: Carrollton Police Department