If you were an investor of Danial Maughan call 303-300-5022 for a free and confidential consultation with an attorney concerning your rights and avenues of recovery.
Daniel G. Maughan, while associated with Financial West Group churned and excessively traded a customer’s trust account. From October 2010 through January 2015 , Maughan executed approximately 1,648 trades, with a principal value of all purchases and sales in excess of $70 million, in the accounts of his investors.
FINRA brought suit concerning these actions in August 2019. The regulatory settlement reached in October 2019 was an agreed sanction to bar Maughan from association with any securities firm in any capacity. This leaves the victims of Maughan to their independent rights of recovery and investors should contact an attorney about recovery options.
The account owners were unsophisticated. Both had a high school degree with a small amount of junior college. The husband had been unemployed as a plumber for approximately two years. The wife had only part-time employment as a bookkeeper. When they inherited the funds they advised Maughan to invest conservatively.
The annualized cost-to-equity ratio—the percentage the account had to appreciate to break even—was 21.06. Maughan’s churning and excessive trading was quantitatively unsuitable and generated commissions and costs totaling approximately $841,000 while causing the account to incur realized and unrealized losses of approximately $812,000.
During the Relevant Period, Maughan also recommended overly aggressive and unsuitable trades in the IFT Account involving: (a) options and (b) non-traditional Exchange-Traded Funds (“ETFs”) and an Exchange Traded Note (“ETN”).
By churning the IFT Account, Maughan willfully violated the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and a multitude of FINRA Rules.
This is not the first time Maughan has been accused of fraud. In 2015, his employer paid $550,000 to settle a suit alleging that he fraudulently sold his investors options and penny stocks.
In 2009, Wedbush Morgan was sued, via arbitration, for Maughan’s recommendation of overly aggressive ETFs and aggressive stocks to an investor. This matter settled for the payment of $10,000.
Merrill Lynch, a previous employer, was sued in 2002 over allegations that Maughan churned the portfolio of an investor, along with making other investments in overly aggressive investments without authorization. Merrill Lynch settled this matter for $46,000.
In 2001, an arbitration suit was filed against Merrill Lynch. The suit alleged that Maughan made unauthorized purchases in the account of a mentally incompetent adult, and that the client could not comprehend any conversation concerning the investments in question. This matter settled for $51,321.
Merrill Lynch terminated Maughan in 2001 for this sale. Maughan has stated that he made “several errors” in the sale of the investment.
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