Wells Fargo Advisors is being sued for more than $500,000 over allegations that a former broker at the firm stole money from two elderly clients.
 
The lawsuit, filed this month in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan, claims that the broker, David J. Homan, who worked at a Wells Fargo Advisors branch in Saginaw, misused his position as trustee for two elderly sisters by converting $513,000 for his own use.
 
The complaint alleges that in 2003 Homan was named a co-trustee by his client Elizabeth Stafford, whose trust benefitted herself and her sister Frances Stafford.
 
After Elizabeth died in April 2009, Homan oversaw the trust for Frances, then 80, who was in a nursing home until she died in 2013, the lawsuit says.
 
In May 2009, Homan moved from UBS Financial Services to Wachovia Securities, as Wells Fargo Advisors was then known.
 
Homan forged Elizabeth Stafford’s signature on the account transfer form, and indicated to Wells Fargo Advisors that she was still alive, according to the plaintiff in the case, Michael R. Zimmerman, an accountant and successor trustee appointed by a probate court.
 
The suit faults Wells Fargo for failing to investigate why the trust account’s address was the same as Homan’s and failing to look into suspicious transactions that listed Homan as the recipient of funds from the trust.
 
In a separate case, a Michigan county court judge last February gave Zimmerman a $1.54 million judgment against Homan.
 
“Collection [from Homan] is ongoing,” said Zimmerman’s attorney, Douglas Chalgian, of the Chalgian & Tripp Law Offices PLLC in East Lansing, Mich.
 
Homan has been “dodging creditors,” he added.
 
Chalgian said he has been in touch with criminal authorities, but so far no criminal charges have been filed in the case.
 
Homan left the industry in April 2014. In regulatory records, Wells Fargo Advisors disclosed that Homan voluntarily resigned while under internal review for failing to advise the firm that he was a beneficiary of a client’s trust and served as power of attorney for a client.
 
This month, Finra permanently barred Homan after he failed to respond to requests for information.
 
Homan’s attorney, Stephan Gaus, of Smith Bovill PC in Saginaw, declined comment.
 
A Wells Fargo Advisors spokesman declined comment.