CHICAGO, June 19, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Stoltmann Law Offices continues to investigate Raymond James for its supervision of its former financial advisor Clause C. Foerster. Beginning in 2000, Foerster solicited his customers to invest in an entity called SG Investments, which he marketed as an income oriented investment. Foerster instructed Raymond James clients to move funds from their brokerage accounts to their personal bank accounts via wire or electronic funds transfer. Foerster then instructed the clients to write checks from their personal bank accounts, made payable to "S.G. Investments." S.G Investments was not an investment fund, but a bank account that Foerster controlled.
According to Chicago securities fraud attorney Andrew Stoltmann: "Clause Foerster entered the securities industry in 1989 with JC Bradford. He also worked for Citigroup and Morgan Keegan prior to joining Raymond James. He worked out of an office in Greenville, South Carolina. The scheme he was perpetrating was long term and wasn't particularly sophisticated. His previous employers had an iron clad obligation to supervise his activities while he was affiliated with their firm. Failure to do so can make the firms, including Raymond James, fully financially responsible for the damages he created. Reasonable supervision requires a firm to take action when a review of a customer's account shows abnormal activities in the account that should put the firm on notice of potential problems. On the other hand, if a firm is not following procedures designed to detect misconduct, and is therefore committing a supervision violation, the firm may never observe the 'red flags' that indicate possible misconduct. Red flags, often described as 'indications of violations' or 'suggestions of irregularities', may be viewed as indicators that should alert a person familiar with the operations of a brokerage firm that further investigation of specific conduct is necessary to protect against the transgression of established standards. Once such an indication or suggestion manifests itself, the need for prompt action arises. Often in Ponzi scheme, theft and selling away cases there are signs of potential misconduct that are either ignored or not followed up on. One way a brokerage firm can be held financially liable for the stolen or converted funds is if they failed to reasonably supervise the financial advisor."
According to Stoltmann, "The FINRA arbitration process or lawsuits can be used to potentially recover some, or all, of the converted funds associated with Foerster. We encourage victims to speak with an experienced securities lawyer before speaking with Raymond James in order to learn all contingency fee legal options available to them." To learn more about recovering these losses on a contingency fee basis, please visit www.PonziRecoveryCenter.com or call our securities fraud team at 312.332.4200 in Chicago, Illinois.