Page 34 - Investment Advisor - December 2021

NEWS of the YEAR

2019, he accepted “a marketing and financial education job” others, especially Black women and girls.
at MassMutual. “Ms. Avan was a leader in our community, and this
“My job was to help develop financial education classes that senseless act of violence has resulted in a significant loss
advisors could present to prospective clients. I’m not a stock- to us all,” Los Angeles County District Attorney George
broker or financial advisor. I did not talk to clients and I did Gascón said.
not recommend stocks for them to buy,” Gill said. Turner, 52, of Westchester, California, was arrested in
Another proposed class action complaint was filed against August and bail was set at $2 million, police said. Turner
Gill Feb. 16, this time in U.S. District Court for the District of was charged with felony murder and first-degree residen-
Massachusetts, that alleged he misrepresented himself as an tial burglary in his former girlfriend’s death, according
amateur investor and profited by artificially inflating the price to Gascón.
of GameStop stock. On Aug. 3, Turner allegedly entered Avan’s home, and he
In March, Galvin ordered MML Investors Services LLC, a killed her before leaving Aug. 4, the district attorney said.
subsidiary of MassMutual, to overhaul its social media policies Turner had been with Merrill since 2004, and his registra-
and pay a $4 million fine over the company’s failure to super- tion with FINRA shifted to BofA Securities in 2019, according
vise agents, including Gill. to his report on FINRA’s BrokerCheck.
Although Avan and Turner had been involved in a roman-
tic relationship, she had considered seeking a restrain-
Anthony Duwayne Turner, the former boyfriend and co- ing order against him, NBC4’s I-Team reported, citing law
worker of slain Bank of America executive Michelle Avan, enforcement sources.
pleaded not guilty to her murder in August, according to the A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 1 at Los Angeles
Los Angeles district attorney. Superior Court in Van Nuys, California, for Turner, according
Avan served as a managing director at Merrill for 22 years to the court’s website.
before being promoted in June to head of BofA’s global wom-
en’s and underrepresented talent strategy, according to her
LinkedIn profile. LPL Financial was “deeply concerned by the statements
The cause of her attributed to” a registered representative for the firm,
death was unknown, the company said in August in a statement provided to
but she “appeared to Investment Advisor after videos posted on TikTok and
have suffered trauma shared across social
to her face,” accord- media sites alleged
ing to the Los Angeles she told her staff she
Police Department. didn’t want to inter-
Avan’s son discovered view Black applicants
her body a week ear- for an open position at
lier, and a member her office.
of her family con- In a video, Denise
tacted police and Los Bradley, who goes by
Angeles Fire Department paramedics. the name auntkaren0
“Family members became concerned when they could not on TikTok and has
contact Avan,” police said. West Valley Patrol officers arrived more than 1 million fol-
at Avan’s home and found Avan unresponsive, police said, add- lowers, branded Eileen
ing that paramedics pronounced her dead. Cure, a registered broker and advisor at LPL-affiliated Cure
“We are devastated by the news,” BofA said in a statement and Associates in Nederland, Texas, the “racist of the day”
provided to Investment Advisor in August. “Michelle was a after somebody on Cure’s staff forwarded Bradley an image of
valued member of our company for more than 20 years and a statement allegedly made by Cure after interviewing a Black
will be greatly missed. We extend our deepest sympathies candidate for the position.
to her family.” According to Bradley’s video, which had been viewed
In 2019, the Los Angeles Sentinel named Avan one of Los more than 542,000 times, Cure allegedly told her staff in a
Angeles’ Powerful and Influential Black Women Leaders. Skype message: “i wanted to tell you i specifically said no
The award recognized her for her leadership and commit- blacks. I’m not a prejudiced person, but our clients are 90%
ment to the community in addition to her work mentoring white and i need to cater to them…so that interview was a

32 INVESTMENT ADVISOR DECEMBER 2021 | ThinkAdvisor.com