Former financial adviser facing charges
A former Red Deer financial adviser, who previously admitted to defrauding clients, has been charged under the Criminal Code for allegedly raising $200,000 from six different investors in a fraudulent manner over nearly a year and a half.
The Alberta Securities Commission and Alberta RCMP said Monday that Shaun Wayne Howell was charged with six offences following an investigation by the Joint Serious Offences Team.
Howell was charged with three counts of fraud and three counts of theft over $5,000. The alleged incidents took place between September 2013 and February 2015.
In December 2016, Howell was ordered to pay a $500,000 fine after admitting to defrauding clients whose investment funds he deposited into his own bank account.
He also agreed at the time to a permanent ban under a settlement reached with the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. The regulator said Howell admitted he solicited clients to invest close to $700,000 in various securities over several years while working with RBC Dominion Securities and then misusing the funds. He also admitted to borrowing $50,000 from a client without his employer’s knowledge.
A settlement agreement stated that eight clients of Howell’s invested $692,000 between November 2008 and February 2015. He returned about $290,000 to five of them in what were falsely represented as investment payments. Many of the victims were longtime friends of Howell’s, according to the settlement.
In one case, a 60-year-old woman was encouraged to withdraw from her RRSP and draw on a personal line of credit to provide him with funds totalling $50,000, according to the settlement. Howell borrowed $50,000 from another client with a promise to repay the loan over three years. He returned $8,700 in interest payments but none of the principal amount.
Howell started work with RBC in 1999. The bank terminated his employment in March 2015, according to the regulator.
Howell is scheduled to appear in a Red Deer provincial court on Oct. 26 in connection to the criminal charges he now faces.
The Joint Serious Offences Team, an enforcement partnership between the securities commission, RCMP financial integrity program and Alberta Crown Prosecution Service, investigates and prosecutes quasi-criminal cases under the Securities Act and certain securities-related criminal offences under the Criminal Code. It targets repeat offenders, serious frauds and breaches of ASC or court orders and bans.