Sherwin Brown, former investment adviser turned coach, charged by SEC

A former investment adviser who was barred from the industry and has since been working as a “money coach” is back in front of a judge on charges that he never stopped advising clients. Despite a 2010 fine of more than $1.3 million for allegedly diverting client funds, Sherwin Brown, who was barred in 2011, has continued to operate Jamerica Financial Inc. and receive compensation for providing investment advice, the Securities and Exchange Commission alleged. “Since that time, apparently without interruption, [Mr.] Brown has continued to control Jamerica, to provide investment advice to his clients, and to receive, along with Jamerica, compensation from Jamerica's clients,” the SEC said in a complaint filed Dec. 23 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, where Mr. Brown, who is based in Boca Raton, Fla., had clients. The SEC said that between June 2011 and May 2014, an account at Wells Fargo & Co. in the name of Jamerica Financial had received more than 120 deposits totaling $330,000 made payable to Mr. Brown and Jamerica. A number of the checks included notes in the memo lines indicating that they were “written to pay either Brown or Jamerica for investment advisory services,” the SEC said. Clients also confirmed that they had received investment advice, according to the SEC, which is seeking an injunction and forfeiture of ill-gotten gains. A number associated with Jamerica Financial was not in service, and a message sent to Mr. Brown through his website was not returned. The case may be representative of the thin line that some brokers tread after turning to coaching or teaching roles once they are banned from the industry. Since being debarred, Mr. Brown has billed himself on his website as a rags-to-riches success story of a Jamaican-born immigrant who went from “dirt-poor poverty” to “unimaginable heights of success” as an entrepreneur. He also has been running TheOfficialMoneyCoach.com, which features a blog on investing and advertises his books, including “Safer 401(k) Investing: How to Protect All Your Investments from Wall Street Greed and Government” (Beaver's Pond Press, 2012). “You will learn how a $40 one-time investment compounded via dividends to a whopping $11 million,” says a description of the book on the website. “[Mr. Brown] will professionally coach you on what types of companies to invest in, demonstrating why they are good and how they will earn you money.” Jamerica had close to $30 million in assets under management at one point before it was ordered inactive, according to SEC filings.