A former police master sergeant and firefighter are trying to track down a barred Oklahoma City financial advisor who they say stole nearly $1 million from them, according to Oklahoma's News9.com.
The advisor, David Love, stole "hundreds of thousands of dollars a piece" from Keith Cornman and Bob Lester, clients of Love's who had never met, the station reported. Love has been barred by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the Oklahoma Securities Commission. Cornman and Lester say they are just two of dozens of potential clients who were "robbed" by Love.
Love handled Cornman and Lester's retirement accounts until "red flags" started to appear in 2024, the station reported.
Love "never offered to tell me that a large deduction had been taken out of my account," Lester, who retired from the fire department as a corporal, added during the interview.
How large of a deduction? "It was just under $500,000," Lester replied during the interview.
"For me, he took just over 60% of my entire retirement account, $400,000," Cornman added.
Both men say Love "convinced them to withdraw the money from their retirement accounts, for a promising new investment opportunity," the station reported.
Love's BrokerCheck profile states that in January through May 2024, while working at Lasalle Securities, Love offered and sold unregistered securities in the nature of investment contracts to three investment advisory clients and seven other investors in violation of Oklahoma securities law.
The unregistered securities involved the pooling of investor funds in a wallet for Love to invest in cryptocurrency on a secondary exchange using options and signals, purportedly generated by artificial intelligence-guided software, that he received from another individual he met through an online dating platform.
Love "omitted to tell the investment advisory clients [that] part of their funds would be used to refund an investor" and to pay Love's personal expenses, his BrokerCheck profile states.
Lasalle fired Love on May 30, 2024. Love failed to respond to FINRA requests for information and was barred by the regulator on Sept. 4, 2024.
Love was with NYLife Securities from August 2004 to 2008. He then moved to MetLife Securities until April 2009. His next registration was at MML Investor Services, from April 2009 to February 2010. He then spent 10 months at Morgan Stanley.
Love settled a customer dispute in 2009 for $7,000, which alleged that he forged the client's signature on a policy delivery receipt and other documents relating to the client's non-variable life insurance policy.
Love's house was sold in 2025, leaving Cornman and Lester "no clue where he is," News9.com reported.
Two years after they first made their complaints, "no criminal charges have been brought forward," the station reported.
"I want accountability," Cornman said. "I want him in jail. If we can recover, that's great. Also, I want to bring awareness about what people can do regarding their financial statements and their accounts, and things that they can do to safeguard themselves from fraud."
As of Thursday, Love has not been charged with any crimes. The Oklahoma City Police Department referred ThinkAdvisor to the Oklahoma State Courts lookup system, which showed no recent records for Love.
Both Cornman and Lester "filed police reports in the cities that they live in and those departments told them that they each had referred the investigation to the Oklahoma Attorney General's office," the network reported. The AG's office told the news station "it cannot confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation."
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