Ex-LPL, special needs advisor faces criminal charges in Connecticut

A one-time financial advisor in Connecticut whose practice focused on special needs and autism, Andrew Komarow, was charged this week with allegedly defrauding three financial services companies of close to $3.3 million. 

Komarow’s alleged scheme was akin to trading on margin without the assets to cover the margin debt. 

The U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut on Tuesday said that Komarow, 36, of Avon, faces an 11 count indictment that was returned last month by a federal grand jury in New Haven.

Komarow appeared Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Dave Vatti in Bridgeport, pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on a $50,000 bond. 

His attorney, Bob Frost, on Thursday afternoon did not immediately return a phone call to comment. 

It’s been a downward spiral in recent years for Komarow, who was featured in InvestmentNews in May 2021 for his focus on understanding special-needs financial planning.

He was registered with LPL Financial from 2016 to the end of 2022 and then briefly with Royal Alliance Associates Inc., now Osaic Wealth, according to his BrokerCheck report.

FINRA in 2023 barred Komarow from the securities industry after he failed to cooperate in an investigation in the wake of being accused by his firm last year of not using electronic transfers of funds properly.

A year later, the Securities and Exchange Commission also barred the former advisor from the industry, claiming he engaged in a “free-riding” securities trading scheme from October 2022 to January 2023.

So-called “free-riding" is a fraudulent practice in which securities traders seek to exploit the "immediate access" credit that's extended by certain broker-dealers in advance of incoming deposits of cash from bank accounts.

Komarow’s Connecticut-based firm, Planning Across The Spectrum, focused on special needs, with most of the staff being neurodivergent. He was also an InvestmentNews 2021 Diversity, Equity & Inclusion award winner.

According to a statement from the U.S. Attorney, Komarow’s scheme allegedly took advantage of credit extended by the financial services companies.

He allegedly exploited delays in time from when he initiated Automated Clearing House fund transfers, which are also known as electronic fund transfers, between his personal bank accounts and his personal brokerage accounts, to the time when the transactions were posted and cleared by the financial services companies.

Between approximately October 2022 and February 2023,  Komarow allegedly initiated $8.9 million in such transfers from his bank accounts to multiple, often newly opened, brokerage accounts despite having insufficient funds in his bank accounts to support the transfers.

He then used the brokerage accounts to conduct high-risk, short-term options trading in an attempt to make immediate profits to cover his insufficient funds, according to the U.S. Attorney.

Through his scheme, the three financial services companies allegedly suffered total losses of $3.3 million. Komarow faces 10 charges of wire fraud and one charge of securities fraud.