A former Florida neighbor of Bernie Madoff who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison sentence for investor fraud has been permanently barred from working in the securities industry by the Securities & Exchange Commission.
Donald Anthony Walker Young, 41, of Coatsville, Pa., a former financial advisor, was barred by the SEC on Feb. 28 after pleading guilty in 2010 to bilking about 40 investors of $23 million in a Ponzi scheme.
The order bars Young from associating with any investment adviser, broker, dealer, municipal securities dealer, or transfer agent, and revokes the investment advisor registration of Acorn Capital Management LLC. The punishment was specified in a consent agreement signed by Young, according to the SEC.
The SEC had sued Young in April 2009, accusing him of running a Ponzi scheme like his former Palm Beach, Fla., neighbor, Bernie Madoff. In its lawsuit, the SEC claimed that Young stole or misappropriated more than $23 million from his investors and used $13 million of it for personal expenses, including withdrawing $1.9 million from one investor's account so he could buy his Sanford Avenue home for $2.1 million in 2006, that neighbored Madoff's former Palm Beach home. The proximity of the two residences seems to have been just a coincidence. The SEC said there is no known connection between Young and the 74-year-old disgraced investment manager.
-Jim McConville