Financial adviser guilty of fraud in case related to client's murder

A federal jury in Texas last week convicted a former financial adviser of a fraud scheme that included the murder of a client in the winter of 2020. The alleged killer, Keith Todd Ashley, 50, tried to make the death look like a suicide, according to federal authorities.

Ashley was found guilty by the jury of wire fraud, mail fraud, carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and bank fraud.  The verdict was reached last Wednesday after a week-long trial before a U.S. District Court near Dallas.

The victim, James “Jim” Seegan, 62, had been killed by a gunshot wound to the head. He was found by his wife when she returned to their home near Dallas on the evening of Feb. 19, 2020. Next to Seegan was a typed note indicating he had committed suicide, the police said in 2020.

“Ashley was a friend and financial adviser of Seegan’s who would visit the Seegan home periodically,” the police said in a statement at the time. “During the course of the investigation, detectives also identified several other victims of a Ponzi-type scheme Ashley orchestrated.”

Ashley faces up to life in federal prison at sentencing. He had been a licensed securities salesperson from 2000 to 2020 and spent 18 years at Parkland Securities, formerly known as Sammons Securities Co., according to his BrokerCheck profile.

In May 2016, Ashley began stealing investment funds from Seegan, who is identified as being a resident of Carrollton, Texas, in a statement from the U.S. Attorney's office.

This scheme included transferring the client’s money into Ashley's personal accounts and changing the beneficiary of the man’s life insurance to a trust controlled by him, according to the statement.  The scheme eventually resulted in the Feb. 19, 2020, murder of the client, which Ashley attempted to stage as a suicide. 

Even after the client was killed, Ashley went through elaborate steps to collect on the life insurance policy, transfer funds from the victim’s bank account to himself, and attempt to obtain a copy of the victim’s autopsy report, according to the U.S. Attorney.  Ashley was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2020.  

[Read more: SEC charges ex-LPL broker with stealing $1.3 million from elderly client]