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Regulation and Compliance > Federal Regulation

FINRA Fines Current, Former LPL Advisors Over False Signatures

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What You Need to Know

  • The advisors didn't admit or deny the allegations.

Reguators fined and suspended an LPL Financial advisor for allowing reps to electronically sign his name on documents and a former LPL advisor accused of signing for clients.

In one case, the Financial Industrustry Regulatory Authority reported early this month that Timothy William Leveroni, a broker and advisor with LPL in Braintree, Massachusetts, has accepted a two-month suspension and $7,500 fine without admitting or denying FINRA’s findings that he permitted registered representatives to electronically sign his name on account documents.

FINRA found that the representatives electronically signed Leveroni’s name on customer accounts where he was the representative of record, using a shared email address that he and the other representatives had access to.

“None of the customers complained. The documents included required records of his member firm, including new account applications and account update forms. As a result, Leveroni caused the firm to maintain inaccurate books and records,” FINRA states on its BrokerCheck tool.

Leveroni, who has been registered with FINRA since 1977, allowed the registered representatives to falsify his signature on more than 100 documents from May 2020 through March 2021, according to the letter of acceptance, waiver and consent that he signed in January. His two-month suspension starts in March.

In the other case, former LPL advisor Bruce Allen Rathkamp, who resigned from the firm in May 2022 after allegations he electronically signed account documents on behalf of customers, has accepted a $5,000 fine and a four-month suspension from FINRA.

Rathkamp consented to the sanctions without admitting or denying FINRA’s findings that he “forged or falsified the electronic signatures of customers on account documents. The findings stated that Rathkamp also forged the electronic signature of another registered representative on some of the documents.

“None of the customers complained and the transactions, which did not generate any commissions for Rathkamp, were authorized. Rathkamp falsely attested to his member firm on a compliance questionnaire that he had not signed or affixed another person’s signature on a document. In addition, through his conduct, Rathkamp caused his firm to maintain inaccurate books and records,” FINRA stated on its BrokerCheck site last month.

In the AWC letter he signed last month, FINRA alleges Rathkamp, who first registered with the authority in 1985, forged or falsified 10 customer electronic signatures on 18 documents from October 2020 to January 2021, and forged another registered representative’s electronic signature on four of the documents.

Rathkamp joined Cadaret Grant & Co. after leaving LPL in 2022 and remained there until late January. His suspension as a broker and investment advisor started Monday.

Photo credit: FINRA


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