Regulators minced few words in barring a dismissed Northwestern Mutual Investment Services financial representative from the industry, finding that he had presented a faked registration exam score report and lied multiple times to his employer.
"Respondent Willnard Love’s securities industry career was brief. It lasted less than three years — from August 3, 2021, when FINRA member firm Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC, hired him in a non-registered capacity, to June 7, 2024, when the firm terminated his association with it," a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority enforcement office wrote in a decision Friday.
Love, whose LinkedIn profile indicates that he's based in St. Louis, was barred from associating with any FINRA member firm in any capacity "for making false and misleading statements and submitting a falsified examination score report to his firm," and ordered to pay costs, FINRA's Office of Hearing Officers decided.
In January 2023, as the firm required, Love took the FINRA registration examination; he failed the test but told his supervisor that he had passed it, according to the FINRA hearing panel decision.
"When his firm informed him that his official score report showed that he had failed, he agreed to provide the firm with the passing score report he claimed he received from the testing center. After a delay of more than two weeks, he produced an altered passing score report. A FINRA test-security investigation ensued," the decision states.
After the probe, FINRA's enforcement department made a complaint against Love, alleging that he had submitted a falsified test score report and lied to his firm. Among other points, an investigator found that ink saturation and text spacing differed between the report that Love provided and the official report.
Love filed an answer denying the charges, and the Office of Hearing Officers appointed a panel to handle the matter.
"In it, he admitted he failed the ... exam but claimed that he incorrectly, not falsely, told Northwestern he had passed the exam because the proctor gave him an exam score report that said so. Therefore, he asserted, he did not violate FINRA Rule 2010," the panel wrote.
Love participated in the first three pre-hearing conferences, representing himself, FINRA said.
"Then he ceased participating in the proceedings," the authority said.
The panel held a hearing in St. Louis in May despite Love’s absence, finding evidence that sustained the allegations, rejecting Love's defense and imposing the bar, the decision states.
The panel found that he had told the firm multiple times he had passed the Securities Industry Essentials exam.
"The evidence in this case overwhelmingly establishes that Love knowingly gave Northwestern a false passing score report and then made multiple false and misleading statements to the firm," the decision says.
Although not included in the complaint charges, Love's conduct in the year after he failed the test caused the panel concern, the decision notes.
Love's supervisor and team had tried to work with him while ensuring his compliance, to no avail, the decision states. The “last straw” came when the supervisor learned that Love was signing external emails and identifying himself on his voicemail as “financial advisor Willnard Love” after the supervisor and the firm’s chief supervision officer had told him to stop doing so because he lacked the licenses to be a financial advisor, it states. The firm and Love signed mutual termination paperwork.
Love didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment Monday, sent to an address on his Facebook page, where he lists himself as a risk management advisor. ThinkAdvisor also left a voicemail at the phone number provided on Facebook.
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