Firm to repay investors whose funds were used without permission

Wednesday, July 18, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU

CARSON CITY -- A consent agreement with a Las Vegas financial firm has resulted in nine Nevada investors receiving more than $2 million in restitution, Secretary of State Dean Heller said Tuesday.

He said Penson Financial Services, licensed as a broker dealer since 1996, agreed to make the repayments to investors whose accounts were tampered with.

Penson Financial acted as a clearing firm for Finance 500, Inc., another licensed broker-dealer. Heller said that between February 2000 and January 2001, Tony Davis, a sales representative for Finance 500, is accused of transferring funds from Finance 500 customer accounts to third parties without the knowledge of the account owners.

Davis, according to Heller, is accused of forging the signatures of his clients and placing unlawful notarizations on the wire required forms.

Davis, licensed since 1997, has had his sales representative license suspended, Heller said.

The secretary of state said, "Investors place a trust in their brokers, and in this case, the trust was clearly violated. Given the level of unauthorized activity in investor accounts, I consider it especially fortunate that these investors were made whole again."