{"id":6868,"date":"2019-03-11T16:17:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T21:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/?p=6868"},"modified":"2019-03-11T16:17:07","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T21:17:07","slug":"sec-bars-former-wells-fargo-broker-over-alleged-1-3m-senior-investor-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-bars-former-wells-fargo-broker-over-alleged-1-3m-senior-investor-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tJust a few weeks after former Wells Fargo (WFC) broker John Gregory Schmidt consented to a final judgment in the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> US Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s (SEC) <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/investor-claims\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">investor fraud<\/a> case against him, the regulator announced that it has barred Schmidt for misappropriating more than $1.3M from clients, most of them elderly retired investors. Schmidt, who also ran Schmitt Investment Strategies Group in Ohio and was already barred by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.finra.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra)<\/a>, was fired by Wells Fargo in 2017. In a parallel criminal case, he is also charged with 128 felony counts over the same fraud allegations.<\/p>\n<p>The SEC\u2019s complaint notes that at the time that Wells Fargo fired Schmidt, he had about 325 retail brokerage customers. At least half of them had worked with him for over a decade, and a \u201csignificant percentage\u201d were retirees who depended on regular withdrawals from their brokerage accounts to cover their living expenses. Many of them were unsophisticated, inexperienced investors, some of whom were suffering from dementia, including Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n<p>Schmidt\u2019s scam purportedly involved making unauthorized sales and withdrawals involving variable annuities from certain customers\u2019 accounts and then using fraudulent authorization letters to move the money to the other clients\u2019 accounts. According to the Commission\u2019s complaint, between \u201903 and \u201917, Schmidt took money out of seven clients\u2019 accounts and moved the funds to the accounts of other clients to conceal shortfalls there.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-bars-former-wells-fargo-broker-over-alleged-1-3m-senior-investor-fraud\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Just a few weeks after former Wells Fargo (WFC) broker John Gregory Schmidt consented to a final judgment in the US Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s (SEC) investor fraud case against him, the regulator announced that it has barred Schmidt for misappropriating more than $1.3M from clients, most of them elderly retired investors. Schmidt, who also [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773,3783,3760,3803,3884],"tags":[3320,3022],"class_list":["post-6868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broker-fraud","category-broker-misconduct","category-sec-enforcement","category-senior-investors","category-variable-annuities","tag-john-gregory-schmidt-c","tag-wells-fargo"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 11, 2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"John Gregory Schmidt, who also ran Schmitt Investment Strategies Group in Ohio and was already barred by FINRA, was fired by Wells Fargo in 2017.\" \/>\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\/sec-bars-former-wells-fargo-broker-over-alleged-1-3m-senior-investor-fraud\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 11, 2019\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"John Gregory Schmidt, who also ran Schmitt Investment Strategies Group in Ohio and was already barred by FINRA, was fired by Wells Fargo in 2017.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/gavel-judge-full.jpg\" \/>\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":"SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; March 11, 2019","description":"John Gregory Schmidt, who also ran Schmitt Investment Strategies Group in Ohio and was already barred by FINRA, was fired by Wells Fargo in 2017.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-bars-former-wells-fargo-broker-over-alleged-1-3m-senior-investor-fraud\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"SEC Bars Former Wells Fargo Broker Over Alleged $1.3M Senior Investor Fraud &#8212; 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