{"id":6139,"date":"2017-04-20T16:24:08","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.institutionalinvestorsecuritiesblog.com\/?p=1537"},"modified":"2017-04-20T16:24:08","modified_gmt":"2017-04-20T21:24:08","slug":"securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/","title":{"rendered":"Securities Fraud: Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M, Theranos Investors Claim Company Threatened Bankruptcy if Sued, &#038; Arkansas Retirement System\u2019s Pension Fund Agrees to More than $28M Settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><strong>Ex-Merrill Lynch Broker Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Jeffrey Kluge, a longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. His <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/investor-claims\/broker-misconduct\/\">bank fraud<\/a> ran from 2001 through November 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Kluge\u2019s plea agreement said that he committed bank fraud by fabricating account statements under Merrill Lynch\u2019s name and pledging fake collateral to the banks so he could set up multi-million dollar credit lines. For instance, in 2001 he was able to get a $150K credit line with Alliance Bank in Minnesota by telling the financial institution that he had enough municipal bond funds as collateral. In fake account statements he sent the bank as evidence of these bond holdings, Kluge concealed from Alliance Bank that he had already promised the assets in the accounts for loans from the firm.<\/p>\n<p>In 2007, Kluge was able to get a $1M credit line from Platinum Bank, which is also in Minnesota. His bank fraud scheme defrauded Platinum Bank in a similar fashion.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/#more-6139\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-Merrill Lynch Broker Pleads Guilty to Bank Fraud Jeffrey Kluge, a longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. His bank fraud ran from 2001 through November 2016. Kluge\u2019s plea agreement said that he committed bank fraud by fabricating account statements under Merrill Lynch\u2019s name and pledging fake [&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":[3994,3783,3752,3800],"tags":[2795,2796],"class_list":["post-6139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bank-fraud","category-broker-misconduct","category-financial-firms","category-merrill-lynch","tag-apers","tag-theranos"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. His bank fraud ran from 2001 through November 2016.\" \/>\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\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"A longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. His bank fraud ran from 2001 through November 2016.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog","description":"A longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. 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His bank fraud ran from 2001 through November 2016.","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\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/"},"author":{"name":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"headline":"Securities Fraud: Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M, Theranos Investors Claim Company Threatened Bankruptcy if Sued, &#038; Arkansas Retirement System\u2019s Pension Fund Agrees to More than $28M Settlement","datePublished":"2017-04-20T21:24:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/"},"wordCount":706,"keywords":["APERS","Theranos"],"articleSection":["Bank Fraud","Broker Misconduct","Financial Firms","Merrill Lynch"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/","url":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/securities-fraud-former-merrill-lynch-broker-admits-bilking-banks-8m-theranos-investors-claim-company-threatened-bankruptcy-sued-arkansas-retirement-systems-pensi\/","name":"Former Merrill Lynch Broker Admits to Bank Fraud of More than $8M &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-04-20T21:24:08+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"description":"A longtime Merrill Lynch broker, has pleaded guilty to defrauding two banks of more than $8.7M. 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