Judge gives securities broker another chance

Bill Gang

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 1998 | 11:42 a.m.

A securities broker whose failed financial services company cost senior citizens hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1996 has been given a chance to return to his profession in Nevada, but only under supervision.

Robert Tretiak's license had been suspended for five years for diverting money from an initial public stock offering in his Retirement Financial Centers of America, a brokerage firm catering to senior citizens at offices close to their communities.

The $1 million he collected in investment capital was supposed to be used to purchase land for the Las Vegas office, according to information given investors. Investors were told their money would be secured by the property.

Instead, according to arguments Tuesday in District Judge Mark Gibbons' courtroom, a loan was secured to fund the purchase and the cash went toward other things, including Tretiak's $36,000 credit card bill.

Tretiak claimed the company problems weren't his fault but the fault of his lawyers, who approved his financial dealings, and the fault of company employees, who turned on him to become witnesses for the state.

Gibbons didn't buy the argument, saying, "Everybody has to be accountable for his actions, you can't just lay it off on bad advice from lawyers."

The case was in Gibbons' courtroom because Tretiak and his attorney, Matthew Callister, were challenging a five-year suspension of Tretiak's license imposed by a state hearing officer.

In the end, Gibbons agreed the punishment was too great but indicated he was uncomfortable giving Tretiak a free hand to run his own securities company.

The judge also didn't seem convinced by Callister's claim that Tretiak wants to re-establish his failed company as a way of earning money to repay the investors he victimized.

Tretiak, 59, can apply in January for a brokers license that would let him work under supervision for a securities company. The judge noted that if there are problems, the company would be held accountable and investors would be protected.

In January 2002, Tretiak can apply for a return of his unrestricted license, although the Nevada Secretary of State's office could deny that.

Deputy Attorney General Grenville Pridham argued against giving Tretiak another chance.

"He already demonstrated he is able to cheat people out of $1 million, and he has made no effort to pay it back," Pridham said, who added he was surprised that Tretiak was not prosecuted criminally.

Callister countered that none of Tretiak's clients lost more than 2 percent of their stock portfolio and the average loss was about $2,000.

While Gibbons concluded that "investors didn't get what they paid to get," he decided to give Tretiak "the benefit of the doubt and let him earn a living."

A June 1996 order by the state prevented about 250 stockholders from selling their shares in Retirement Financial Centers of America Inc. after it went bankrupt.

By then the Secretary of State's Securities Division already had revoked the stock brokerage license of a Retirement Financial subsidiary and barred Tretiak from involvement in the securities industry.