A former LPL Financial broker was arrested and charged Wednesday with defrauding his older clients and stealing their retirement assets, according to court documents and a statement jointly released by Nathaniel R. Mendell, acting U.S. attorney, and Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI, Boston Division.
Paul R. McGonigle, 65, of Middleboro, Massachusetts, was charged with three counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. He appeared before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Donald L. Cabell in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Wednesday and faces about 20 years in prison if convicted.
According to an indictment against McGonigle filed at the court Tuesday, he was a financial advisor for the four clients who wound up being victims of his alleged crimes.
McGonigle was a registered broker with LPL from 2018-2019 after time with five other firms over the course of his 34-year career in the industry, according to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's BrokerCheck. There was no disclosure on his report stating why he left LPL.
LPL terminated McGonigle in early June 2019, is "cooperating with regulators and our investigation is underway," a company spokesperson told ThinkAdvisor on Thursday. The firm didn't say why it terminated him.
FINRA barred McGonigle from associating with all FINRA member firms in any capacity after he failed to respond to its request for information as part of an investigation it was conducting. FINRA sent him a notice of suspension letter dated Aug. 12, 2020.
