ClearPath Wealth Management Tag Archives

The law offices of Gana Weinstein LLP are pleased to announce that a group of 23 claimants have been awarded $3 million by a FINRA arbitration panel after 18 days of hearing and litigation that stretched over three years. The case involved important investor protections concerning broker private securities transactions and outside business activities that firms must supervise and has been picked up by news outlets.

At hearing the evidence showed that Spire Securities, LLC (Spire Securities) and the firm’s principal officers including its CEO David Blisk (Blisk) and CCO Suzanne McKeown (McKeown) failed to supervise their registered representative Patrick Churchville (Churchville). Due to the firm’s non-existent supervision Churchville was able to unsuitably invest his clients in his own private equity funds and misappropriate client funds. Chuchville was later barred from the securities industry and in March of 2017 the United States District Court of Rhode Island sentenced Churchville to 84 months in federal prison for his crimes.

Churchville conducted his fraudulent activities through private equity funds he ran and controlled through a disclosed outside business activity and registered investment advisory practice. Claimants showed that the private equity securities were private securities transactions that the firm was required to supervise. Claimants proved that while Blisk and McKeown approved of Churchville’s activities but that the firm relied on Churchville to supervise himself.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced fraud charges against Rhode Island investment adviser ClearPath Wealth Management, LLC, (ClearPath) and its president, Patrick Churchville (Churchville), for operating a fraudulent investment scheme that resulted in at least $11 million investor losses.

According to the complaint, from December 2010 onward ClearPath and Churchville diverted deposits from new investors to pay prior investors, used proceeds from selling investments to pay unrelated investors, used investors’ funds as collateral for personal loans, used investors’ money to repay the loans, converted investor funds, and also outright stole $2.5 million of investor funds to purchase a waterfront home in Barrington, Rhode Island for Churchville. The SEC’s complaint alleges that Churchville performed deceptive acts and used misleading accounting tricks to conceal the fraud.

The SEC’s alleged that when ClearPath’s investors requested distributions of their investments in September 2013, Churchville lied to investors about the status, worth, and disposition of those investments. Four other entities: ClearPath Multi-Strategy Fund I, L.P., ClearPath Multi-Strategy Fund II, L.P., ClearPath Multi-Strategy Fund III, L.P., and HCR Value Fund, L.P. were named by the SEC as relief defendants.

Articles Tagged with ClearPath Wealth Management

Spire Securities and Principals Found Liable For $3 Million Due to Supervisory Failures

SEC Charges Advisor Patrick Churchville with $11 Million Fraudulent Investment Scheme