A former Dallas, Texas, investment advisor who is serving a three-year prison term for defrauding clients, has been barred from the financial industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC announced Monday.
In January, Wade James Lawrence was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to defrauding 18 clients. He was ordered to pay $1.4 million in restitution and to forfeit $126,000 that he gained from the sale of property he obtained through his fraud, the SEC says.
Between 2010 and 2013, Lawrence’s clients lost $2 million through his actions. He also received $480,000 from five clients whom he told that he would trade securities for their benefit in his own brokerage account, but he used the money for his personal expenses, the SEC said. He repaid some of the money by using investments from new clients to make payments to older clients.