Finra arbitration panel awards client $967,000 in churning, fraud, negligence case

Legend Securities and its barred owner and reps ordered to pay.

An arbitration panel of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. has awarded investor Frederick Blake $966,708 in total damages in a case involving Legend Securities, its CEO Anthony Fusco and three of the defunct New York firm’s registered representatives.

The case included charges of churning, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, failure to supervise, negligence and misrepresentations and nondisclosures. The panel awarded the claimant the total amount requested at the end of the hearing.

Legend Securities was expelled by Finra in 2017 and is out of business. In 2018, a Finra arbitration panel awarded one of the firm’s clients $1.075 million in damages in a case that also involved accusations of churning.

(More: Finra suffers net $68.7 million loss despite increased revenue, decreased expenses)

Mr. Fusco and two of the registered representatives involved — Brian Keith Decker and Steven John Meyer — have been barred. The third broker, Bernardo Misseri, is no longer working in the industry and was suspended by Finra for three months after he left Legend in 2016.

Mr. Fusco filed for bankruptcy in 2018.