The SEC has charged a financial advisor with creating a fictitious billionaire client to lure legitimate clients to her New York and Rhode Island offices.
Leila Jenkins of Locke Capital Management Inc. is accused in the complaint of not only lying to legitimate clients about the fake billionaire, but also to SEC investigators. She also gave investigators bogus documents and Swiss bank account statements tied to the imaginary client, according to the SEC.
Jenkins lied about the billion-dollar client from 2003 to 2009 in brochures, meetings, SEC filings and submissions to online databases that prospective clients used to select money managers, according to the SEC.
She started to take on real clients in 2006, but her real accounts under management never amounted to more than a very small portion of the more than $1 billion she claimed to manage, according to the SEC.
The complaint also accuses Jenkins of lying to clients and potential clients about her firm's investment performance and its employees, according to the SEC.
"This brazen web of lies to investors constituted a serious breach of fiduciary duty," said David Bergers, director of the SEC's Boston regional office.
Jenkins maintains residences in Newport, R.I., and Palm Beach, Fla., according to the complaint.