Ex-Broker Appeals Life Sentence for Crimes Tied to Death of Client

A Texas attorney says a state-level case against his ex-broker client for allegedly murdering a client may not go forward.

"I believe the outcome of the appeal will determine if the state moves forward," said James P. Whalen, owner and founding partner of Whalen Law Office in Frisco, Texas.

Whalen recently filed a notice of appeal for the life sentence handed down to his client for multiple federal crimes.

The client, Keith Todd Ashley – who worked as a broker for Parkland Securities from 2002 to 2020 – was indicted by a federal grand jury on Nov. 12, 2020. He was later found guilty by a jury of wire fraud, mail fraud, carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence and bank fraud in October 2022.

The former broker was charged with murdering a client in 2020 while he was already under investigation for a federal Ponzi scheme.

Ashley was sentenced to life in federal prison early this month for federal crimes including a gun charge tied to the client's death. The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant.

But Whalen argues that details from Ashley's related state-level murder case were stretched by the Justice Department to enhance the allegations that eventually led to the life sentence.

Judicial authorities "overreached" in their prosecution of Ashley by slapping him with a life sentence for the federal case that did not include a charge of murder, unlike the separate state-level case, he told ThinkAdvisor in a phone interview.

There was, Whalen further argued, no crime that Ashley was charged with that would normally result in a life sentence.

The Justice Department did not charge Ashley with murder. The separate state-level murder case against him was initiated by the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. A trial has yet to begin, according to online court records at the District Court of Dallas County's website.

It wasn't clear on Monday when a trial was expected to begin. A spokesperson for the District Attorney didn't immediately respond to a request comment.

But the spokesperson told ThinkAdvisor after the life sentence was handed down only that it is "still an active pending case."

The current U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, Damien M. Diggs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the appeal.

Details of the Charges

Ashley, who was formerly employed at Parkland Securities in Allen, Texas, received his life sentence on charges that he had committed as part of a Ponzi scheme that the Justice Department said he carried out for roughly seven years before his arrest in November 2020.

Roughly two years after being taken into custody, he was found guilty by a federal jury of 17 criminal counts relating to wire, bank and mail fraud and carrying a firearm in relation to a crime of violence.

Ashley was a registered nurse who also began working as an advisor and life insurance agent. According to information presented at his trial, starting in 2016, he began stealing money from his clients.

He promised his clients he would invest their money in financial products but instead used the funds to pay other clients, to keep his struggling brewery in business, to pay his personal bills and to fund a lavish lifestyle, according to court documents.

In May 2016, Ashley started stealing investment funds from James "Jim" Seegan, of Carrollton, Texas. The scheme included Ashley transferring the client's money into his personal accounts and changing the beneficiary of the Seegan's life insurance to a trust controlled by Ashley.

On Feb. 19, 2020, Seegan, then 62, was found by his wife dead of a gunshot wound to the head, Carrollton police said at the time, adding: "Directly next to him was a typed note indicating it was a suicide."

After Seegan's death, Ashley went through elaborate steps to collect on the client's life insurance policy, transfer funds from the victim's bank account to himself, and attempt to obtain a copy of the victim's autopsy report, according to the Justice Department.

Ashley was indicted by a federal grand jury on Nov. 12, 2020.

Pictured: Keith Todd Ashley