The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has barred a former Northwestern Mutual Investment Services registered representative from the brokerage industry for pocketing donations from fund-raising events for a pediatric cancer charity.

Finra said that from August 2017 through February 2018, Roderick Len Whited, a managing director of the Gainesville, Fla., branch office of Northwestern Mutual Investment Services (NMIS), converted $44,170 in charitable donations from two fund-raisers that his member branch hosted for a pediatric cancer charity.

Finra said Whited claimed the portion of the donations that were made through an electronic payment application. He diverted the funds to his personal bank account by linking the electronic payment application to his account. The money was used to pay for his own personal expenses, Finra said.

Upon learning that Whited took the donations, NMIS ordered him to return the money to the charity. Finra said that in May 2018 Whited repaid $35,150.19.

Finra said NMIS filed a Form U5 on February 6, 2020, reporting that Whited was permitted to resign after he was found to have misused funds raised for a September 2017 charity event he organized.

Whited had been in the securities industry for 25 years, beginning his career as an industry representative in April 1996 with NMIS. Between 1998 and 2002, he also was registered as a representative through an association with Robert W. Baird & Co. Since October 2020, he had been with Intercarolina Financial Services, an investment advisor in Greensboro, N.C.

Finra said Whited violated Finra Rule 2010, which requires members and their associates to conduct business with high standards of commercial honor and just and equitable principles of trade. “Conversion of funds, which is the intentional and unauthorized taking of or exercise of ownership over property by one who neither owns the property nor is entitled to possess it,” violates such ruling, Finra said.

Whited accepted and consented to the bar without admitting or denying the findings, Finra said.