Pressure mounts to remove banned Cincinnati broker from elected office

Citizens of a Cincinnati suburb are stepping up their fight to remove a newly elected trustee, after discovering that he was recently kicked out of the brokerage business.

In September, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc. permanently barred Kevin O’Brien from working in the securities industry in any capacity. Mr. O’Brien, until 2008 a representative in Cincinnati with Robert W. Baird & Co. Inc., misappropriated client funds for his own benefit when he transferred $378,000 between client accounts, according to Finra records. (Click here to view Mr. O’Brien’s full Finra record.)

Mr. O’Brien consented to the ban without admitting or denying Finra’s findings. And in November, he was elected to a four-year term as an Anderson Township trustee. In this position, he and two other trustees currently manage the town’s finances and oversee its fire and police departments, plus payments for its roadways.

But a group of Anderson Township citizens filed a subpoena requesting Mr. O’Brien’s records from Robert W. Baird & Co. “The trustee is a fiduciary to the people, and we believe these records may speak to whether he can act in a fiduciary capacity,” said Courtney A. Laginess, an attorney with Keating Muething & Klekamp PLL, who filed the subpoena.

Specifically, the group of petitioners believes that the record is pertinent to requesting that Mr. O’Brien post a higher bond to cover his role as trustee. He posted a $1,000 bond using his own underwriter and paying for it with his own money. According to Mr. Laginess, trustees for Anderson Township typically post a $10,000 bond, which they receive at no cost to them.

Mr. O’Brien filed to quash the subpoena. “The very narrow issue that is in litigation is the issue of the amount of his bond as a township trustee, and it’s our position that what they are asking for has nothing to do with that,” said Michael K. Allen, Mr. O’Brien’s attorney.

Mr. O. Brien filed the motion Jan. 11. That same day, though, a previous request by the citizen’s group netted it a letter of acceptance, waiver and consent between Finra and Mr. O’Brien which outlines the conditions of a possible settlement.

In that letter, Finra detailed that Mr. O’Brien transferred a total of $378,000 from his client’s account to a second account. Of this amount, a portion was used to pay for legitimate expenses on behalf of the client. “O’Brien misappropriated the remaining amount by writing checks to himself and to a charitable organization for which he was treasurer, and by withdrawing cash using an ATM card,” according to the letter.

Mr. O’Brien is director of the Southern Ohio chapter of the Children’s Right Council, a non-profit organization that serves divorced, never-married and extended families, and at-risk youth, according to the group’s website.
It could not be determined by press time if this was the charity named in the Finra letter.