Morgan Stanley has placed one of its star advisors on administrative leave after a newspaper report detailed his 15-year history of allegedly stalking and abusing women.
The New York-based wirehouse knew that one of its high-earning Oregon advisors carried a years-long record of alleged partner abuse and questionable conduct, but allowed him to keep his position, according to a report published Wednesday by New York Times writer Emily Flitter.
According to the report, Portland-based Douglas E. Greenberg, a member of Morgan Stanley’s elite “Chairman’s Club,” faced no repercussions from allegations of abuse that included restraining orders obtained by four different women. The Chairman’s Club is reserved for the company’s top 2 percent of producers.
In applying for a restraining order, one woman claimed that Greenberg “threatened to burn down my house with me in it” and told police that he had trailed her in his car. Another wrote that “he choked me so hard it left a mark on my throat.”
In 2006, Greenberg was charged with violating a restraining order taken out by an ex-girlfriend.
Greenberg’s Finra BrokerCheck history has five marks on his record, none of them related to the alleged abuse nor the restraining orders. In the most recent, in 2013, Greenberg was censured and ordered to pay $10,000 in fines after allegedly exercising discretion in non-discretionary accounts.
According to BrokerCheck, Greenberg started his Morgan Stanley career in 1994.
Morgan Stanley was made aware of the alleged abuse, according to the report, because it received a subpoena in one of the cases against Greenberg. Later, a bank manager told the firm that Greenberg had violated one of the restraining orders.
Morgan Stanley employees acknowledged Greenberg’s conduct online. In 2015, his second wife wrote a series of Facebook posts detailing alleged physical and verbal abuse. Company staff members replied to her post with supportive comments and messages. Later that year, the same woman began receiving threatening anonymous messages in the mail. Police identified Greenberg as a prime suspect, according to the report.
Company employees sent e-mails and texts circulating his mug shot in 2014, when Greenberg was arrested by sheriff’s officers in Clackamas County, Oregon, after allegedly violating a restraining order and harassing his second wife.