Hearing concludes that daughter took advantage of “vulnerable client” and fines her $100,000 plus costs
A mutual fund advisor has been found guilty of defrauding her retired fire fighter father of $31,636.
An MFDA hearing concluded that between about November 2011 and April 2012, while she was a rep for Scotia Securities Inc (SSI) in Waterloo, Ontario, Brenda Marie Douglas redeemed the funds from a RRIF account into a secret bank account, which were both opened without the knowledge of her father.
He became aware of the accounts only through a collection agency’s inquiry about a delinquent line of credit opened in his name at Scotia, which was also done without his knowledge.
Scotia subsequently launched an investigation and her father reported Douglas to the police. Douglas was fired by SSI in 2014 and is no longer registered in the securities industry.
In 2017, she pled guilty to three charges, one of which related to theft while entrusted with power of attorney on the real or personal property of her client (father).
For all the charges, she was sentenced to three years’ probation, a conditional sentence of two years less a day and required to pay restitution of $329,756 over 10 years - $140,300 of which was in connection with the charge relating to her father.
The hearing also concluded that, from February 2017, she failed to co-operate with the MFDA’s investigation. The MFDA fined her a combined total of $100,000 for both allegations of misconduct and ordered her to cover $7,500 costs.
According to the MFDA report, the advisor’s dad was about 70 years old when the offences took place. His wife, who had handled all the banking and financial affairs for the couple, had died in 2006 and he had turned to his daughter for help in looking after his money.
It read: “By virtue of the fact that Client BH was elderly, financially unsophisticated and reliant on the judgment and good faith of the Respondent with respect to the management of his financial affairs, Client BH was a vulnerable client.”
