{"id":4762,"date":"2017-07-31T15:45:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T20:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/?p=4484"},"modified":"2017-07-31T15:45:39","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T20:45:39","slug":"four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Allegedly Targeted Federal Retirees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tThe US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against four former brokers for allegedly persuading federal employees to roll over holdings from federal retirement accounts into variable annuity products that charged higher fees. Their targets were Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) participants. The plan is administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which is an independent government agency.<\/p>\n<p>According to the regulator&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/\">broker fraud<\/a> case, then-brokers Jonathan Cooke, Christopher Laws, Brandon Long, and Danny Hoode promoted the VA products under the Federal Employee Benefits Counselors because they wanted the high commissions. Their alleged victims were federal employees who were 59 \u00bd years of age and older and with TSP account holdings that could be moved over into variable annuities, tax-free, in certain plans at annuity carriers.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Ex-Brokers Made High Commissions From the Alleged Elder Investor Fraud <\/strong><\/h2>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Four Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Allegedly Targeted Federal Retirees\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed charges against four former brokers for allegedly persuading federal employees to roll over holdings from federal retirement accounts into variable annuity products that charged higher fees. Their targets were Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) participants. The plan is administered by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773,3774,3801,3760,3741,3803],"tags":[2845],"class_list":["post-4762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broker-fraud","category-broker-dealers","category-sec","category-sec-enforcement","category-securities-fraud","category-senior-investors","tag-thrift-savings-plan"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Targeted Federal Retirees &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The US SEC has filed charges against four former brokers for allegedly partaking in investor fraud that targeted federal retirees and their retirement plans\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Targeted Federal Retirees &#8212; 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Investor Lawyers Blog","twitter_description":"The US SEC has filed charges against four former brokers for allegedly partaking in investor fraud that targeted federal retirees and their retirement plans","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/"},"author":{"name":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"headline":"Four Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Allegedly Targeted Federal Retirees","datePublished":"2017-07-31T20:45:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/"},"wordCount":577,"keywords":["Thrift Savings Plan"],"articleSection":["Broker Fraud","Broker-Dealers","SEC","SEC Enforcement","Securities Fraud","Senior Investors"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/","url":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/four-ex-brokers-accused-fraud-allegedly-targeted-federal-retirees\/","name":"Ex-Brokers Accused of Fraud that Targeted Federal Retirees &#8212; 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