Broker charged with churning to pay $160,000 penalty

SEC bars Emil Botvinnik, a former registered rep with Windsor Street Capital, as part of final judgment that includes $1.14 million disgorgement.

A federal court in New York has ordered Emil Botvinnik, a former registered representative with Windsor Street Capital, to pay a civil penalty of $160,000, disgorgement of $1.14 million and more than $208,000 in interest as part of a final consent judgment. He also consented to being barred from the industry.

In September 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Botvinnik with defrauding five retail customers by recommending frequent, short-term trades that generated large commissions but were almost guaranteed to lose money for his customers. The SEC charged that as a result of churning by Botvinnik and another broker, Jovannie Aquino, clients lost $3.6 million in aggregate while the brokers generated $4.6 million in commissions.

At the time of the fraud, Botvinnik and Aquino worked for the New York-based brokerage Meyers Associates, which subsequently changed its name to Windsor Street Capital. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. expelled Windsor Street Capital from the securities industry in May 2018.

Botvinnik worked at 11 firms from 2005, when he began his career, to 2018.