Banned adviser jailed for stealing shares worth $1.5m
A former financial adviser has been jailed after being found guilty of stealing shares worth almost $1.5 million to meet margin calls on his mother's margin lending account.
Todd Michael King was sentenced to two years imprisonment on Friday, after being convicted of stealing two parcels of Westfarmers Ltd shares worth $1,479,050 from a client's account, between July 2007 and June 2008.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) permanently banned King from working as an adviser in May 2011, after an investigation found that he had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct associated with the theft of the Westfarmers shares.
The ASIC investigation found that King had breached the Corporations Act 2001, by placing a scanned copy of a client's signature on a document which made possible the unauthorised transfer of 40,000 client shares with a value of approximately $1.5 million.
The ASIC investigation also found that he transferred funds from a client's account for his own use in breach of an agreement with another client not to do so.
ASIC Commissioner John Price backed the court's decision to jail King.
"A jail sentence shows that the court views misconduct by financial advisers very seriously," he said.
"ASIC will continue to focus on holding advisers who break the law to account in order to maintain consumer confidence in the financial services industry."
While the court sentenced King to two years in jail, he was also made eligible for parole.
AUTHOR
Nicholas O'Donoghue
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