Regulators Bar Two Wells Fargo Brokers Over Theft of Funds

In an unfortunate coincidence for Wells Fargo Advisors, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in separate rulings in the past few days barred brokers from the securities industry for stealing money from client accounts.

In a Finra enforcement ruling issued on Thursday, David Jeremy Welty consented to a finding that from October 2015 to the beginning of September 2016 he lifted $8,700 for personal expenses from a “memorial fund” account he had opened at a Well Fargo bank branch and funded with “donations.”

Welty worked at a Wells Fargo bank branch in Norristown, Pa., from March 2012 until he was terminated in December 2016, according to Finra’s BrokerCheck database, neither admitted nor denied the allegations.

Welty, who did not respond to a message sent to his LinkedIn account, consented to the bar without admitting or denying the findings.

A Wells Fargo company spokesman said that Welty was a personal banker at Wells Fargo Bank and that it has reimbursed customers for losses.

The SEC on Monday permanently barred former Wells Fargo Advisors broker Ane Plate for stealing $176,000 that she had raised through the unauthorized sale of securities from elderly clients’ investment accounts, according to the regulator’s settlement order.

Plate, who was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison earlier this month, had worked at the firm’s independent brokerage Wells Fargo Financial Network, in Deltona, Fla., from 2005 through June 2014. She also had been a broker at predecessor firms Wachovia Securities and Prudential Securities, and began her brokerage career in 1999 at Morgan Stanley.

Plate, 60, used the money from the 15 unauthorized trades to pay her mortgage and upgrade her home, according to court documents filed in October when she had appealed her sentence.

Plate admitted to the Commission’s findings as part of the settlement, the SEC said.