Former N.L. investment advisor fined $1M by regulator for bilking clients
CBC
A former Newfoundland investment advisor has been fined $1 million by an industry regulator for taking cash from client accounts.
In addition, Joan McCarthy has been permanently barred from working in the industry.
The Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada also says McCarthy must pay more than $100,000 for costs associated with her disciplinary hearing.
"In an industry that has trust as its most fundamental principle, theft is a repudiation of the most basic industry value," the IIROC panel said in its decision on sanctions for McCarthy.
"Theft from several clients, carried out over a lengthy period, by numerous acts of forgery, and various forms of deceit, adds to the magnitude of this violation. Simply put, it cannot be tolerated."
Last fall, the panel concluded McCarthy was liable for falsifying signatures and appropriating funds from client accounts.
According to IIROC, she declined to co-operate with the regulator's investigation, refusing to provide documents or answer questions.
She had been accused of taking $775,000 from the accounts of six elderly clients over a 13-year period, from 2006 through 2019.
Over that time period, she was employed by MD Management Limited at its St. John's branch. Her employment there ended in March 2019, according to IIROC. She did not work for a regulated firm after that.
McCarthy is also facing two dozen criminal charges that span the same 13-year time frame, and the same number of alleged victims.
The former investment advisor has been charged with six counts each of fraud over $5,000, forgery, using a forged document, and possession of property obtained by crime.
Her case was due to be called at provincial court in St. John's this week, to enter a plea.
But new COVID-19-related restrictions pushed that appearance back to later this month.
Last spring, a CBC News investigation found that Newfoundland and Labrador was the only jurisdiction in Canada that hadn't given IIROC any teeth to actually enforce penalties against rogue investment advisors.
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