Former LPL Financial Advisor Sentenced for Running Ponzi Scheme

Posted on November 27th, 2020 at 3:05 PM

From the Desk of Jim Eccleston at Eccleston Law LLC:

James Thomas Booth, a former advisor, has been sentenced to 42 months in prison for running a Ponzi scheme, ThinkAdvisor reported. Booth was previously registered with LPL Financial. Booth pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud in October 2019. In additional to his prison sentence, Booth was ordered to serve three years of supervised release, and will also be required to pay $4.97 million in forfeiture and pay a not yet determined amount of restitution. Booth was barred by the SEC on November 1, 2019.

According to the indictment, Booth’s scheme began in or around 2013 and continued until 2019.  During that time, Booth promised investors that he would invest their money in securities offered outside of their ordinary advisory and brokerage accounts. Instead Booth used the investors’ money for his own personal expenses and business expenses, prosecutors alleged. Prosecutors alleged that Booth’s victims included a woman whose husband had recently died. According to prosecutors, Booth misappropriated $600,000 from the woman, which came from her late husband’s pension.

Tags: eccleston, LPL, ponzi scheme, advisor sentenced

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