The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has barred a former rep with Moloney Securities Co., a St. Louis-area firm, after he refused to furnish documents to the regulator as part of an investigation into his outside business activities.
Jeffrey Max Cohen, a rep who worked out of two Moloney offices in California, one in Coto de Caza and one in Laguna Niguel, violated Finra Rules 8210 and 2010 when he declined to respond to a request for information related to a Finra investigation, the regulator said.
"This matter originated from allegations regarding the sale of securities through one of Cohen’s prior outside business activities in an arbitration matter disclosed on Cohen’s Uniform Application for Securities Industry Registration or Transfer (Form U4)," Finra said in its letter of acceptance, waiver and consent.
While Cohen is not currently listed as a rep on BrokerCheck, his page profile has nine disclosures, eight of them since 2019, many of which involve six-figure settlements with clients over unsuitable alternative investments. The two largest settlements in August 2019 totaled some $1.4 million. The total number of settlements in the past four years was $2.36 million.
Cohen could not be reached at any publicly listed phone numbers. However, in his BrokerCheck responses to some of the settlements, he made similar comments: "The case was settled without admitting any wrongdoing. I still refute the allegations of the claim. The broker-dealer settled the matter before arbitration."
Cohen was associated with Moloney, Finra said, from July 2015 through November 2021 as a corporate securities representative and as a direct participation programs representative. On November 30, 2021, Moloney filed a Form U5 stating Cohen had been terminated.
As part of the conditions of the letter of acceptance, waiver and consent, Finra said it would not bring further actions against Cohen based on its findings.
(Correction: a previous version of this story included material that was directly quoted from Finra's letter but the quotation marks were left off in an oversight.)