FINRA Hearing Panel Fines Brookstone Securities $1 Million for Fraudulent Sales of CMOs to Elderly

Full Restitution of Over $1.6 Million Ordered to Customers; Firm's CEO and Broker Barred; Former Compliance Officer Barred as Principal

WASHINGTON — The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that a FINRA hearing panel ruled that Brookstone Securities of Lakeland, FL, and the firm's Owner/CEO Antony Turbeville and one of the firm's brokers, Christopher Kline, made fraudulent sales of collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs) to unsophisticated, elderly and retired investors. The panel fined Brookstone $1 million and ordered it to pay restitution of more than $1.6 million to customers, with $440,600 of that amount imposed jointly and severally with Turbeville, and the remaining $1,179,500 imposed jointly and severally with Kline.

The panel also barred Turbeville and Kline from the securities industry, and barred Brookstone's former Chief Compliance Officer David Locy from acting in any supervisory or principal capacity, suspended him in all capacities for two years and fined him $25,000. The ruling resolves charges brought by FINRA in December 2009.

The panel found that from July 2005 through July 2007, Turbeville and Kline intentionally made fraudulent misrepresentations and omissions to elderly and unsophisticated customers regarding the risks associated with investing in CMOs. All of the affected customers were retired investors looking for safer alternatives to equity investments. According to the decision, Turbeville and Kline "preyed on their elderly customers' greatest fears," such as losing their assets to nursing homes and becoming destitute during their retirement and old age, in order to induce them to purchase unsuitable CMOs. By 2005, interest rates were increasing, and the negative effect on CMOs was evident to Turbeville and Kline, yet they did not explain the changing conditions to their customers. Instead, they led customers to believe that the CMOs were "government-guaranteed bonds" that preserved capital and generated 10 percent to 15 percent returns. During the two-year period, Brookstone made $492,500 in commissions on CMO bond transactions from seven customers named in the December 2009 complaint, while those same customers lost $1,620,100.

Two of Kline's customers were elderly widows with very limited investment knowledge, who, vulnerable after their husbands' deaths, were convinced to invest their retirement savings in risky CMOs. Kline told the widows that they could not lose money in CMOs because they were government-guaranteed bonds, and Kline further increased their risk by trading on margin.

Also, the panel noted that Locy completely ignored his responsibility as chief compliance officer and "should have been a line of defense against Turbeville's and Kline's egregious conduct," but instead "he looked the other way while Turbeville and Kline traded CMO accounts that were unsuitable for their customers."

The hearing panel concluded that Brookstone was responsible for Turbeville's and Kline's action. According to the decision, "the firm neither acknowledged nor accepted responsibility for the misconduct at issue in this matter. Instead, through Turbeville and Kline, it attempted to blame the customers for their own losses."

Unless the hearing panel's decision is appealed to FINRA's National Adjudicatory Council (NAC) or is called for review by the NAC, the hearing panel's decision becomes final after 45 days.

Investors can obtain more information about, and the disciplinary record of, any FINRA-registered broker or brokerage firm by using FINRA's BrokerCheck. FINRA makes BrokerCheck available at no charge. In 2011, members of the public used this service to conduct 14.2 million reviews of broker or firm records. Investors can access BrokerCheck at www.finra.org/brokercheck or by calling (800) 289-9999. Investors may find copies of this disciplinary action as well as other disciplinary documents in FINRA's Disciplinary Actions Online database.

FINRA, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is the largest independent regulator for all securities firms doing business in the United States. FINRA is dedicated to investor protection and market integrity through effective and efficient regulation and complementary compliance and technology-based services. FINRA touches virtually every aspect of the securities business – from registering and educating all industry participants to examining securities firms, writing rules, enforcing those rules and the federal securities laws, informing and educating the investing public, providing trade reporting and other industry utilities, and administering the largest dispute resolution forum for investors and firms. For more information, please visit www.finra.org.