Colorado indicts former LPL rep on securities fraud, theft charges

Colorado has indicted former LPL broker Sonya Camarco on six counts of securities fraud and seven counts of theft. She is accused of diverting more than $850,000 in client funds for personal use between January 2013 and May. On Aug. 9, she was terminated by LPL Financial for "depositing third-party checks from client accounts into a bank account she controlled and accessing client funds for personal use," according to Finra's BrokerCheck database. In a release, the Colorado Securities Division said that following an internal investigation LPL conducted in July regarding a suspicious check drawn on a client account, the firm found that several checks had been drawn on several of Ms. Camarco's client accounts. Further investigation revealed that Ms. Camarco was endorsing checks from clients' accounts made payable to an account she controlled, and that she was using the funds for personal expenditures. The indictment also alleges that she did not disclose to clients — one of whom was an elderly woman suffering from dementia — that she was placing their money into accounts she controlled.