Eight claimants were awarded $1.28 million in compensatory damages by a FINRA arbitration panel last Wednesday, which FSC Securities Corp. is on the hook to pay. According to the claimants, a man named Aubrey Lee Price along with two other FSC Securities brokers compelled customers to invest in fraudulent securities as part of a $40 million Ponzi scheme.
According to the allegations, Price and two other FSC brokers convinced their clients to invest their money into PFG fund – allegedly the main vehicle for their Ponzi scheme.
Meyer Wilson reported on Price back in 2012 when the Securities and Exchange Commission froze his assets. Around the same time, the SEC reported that Price seemed to have gone missing. Price allegedly faked his own suicide and continued his life as a marijuana cultivator and part-time bodyguard. Authorities in Georgia found him the next year during a traffic stop.
FSC, a broker-dealer with the AIG Advisor Group, asserts that Price left FSC before participating in the fraudulent activity, adding that the brokerage firm had no knowledge of Price’s dealings after his employment with FSC had terminated. Conversely, the claimants asserted that FSC should have seen the multiple warning signs that indicated what Price and the two other brokers were involved in.
Price was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment last year after being convicted of bank fraud.
