Thomas Brown Hammond Guilty of Theft, Ordered to Pay Over $.5 Million in Restitution, Barred from Industry
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has barred broker Thomas Brown Hammond in conjunction with a plea agreement he entered into with the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California. In submitting a guilty plea, Hammond admitted he stole and converted customer funds for personal use in the amount of at least $546,650.
An investment company and variable contracts products representative with Ameritas Investment Corp. from 2006 to 2011, Hammond was also a licensed insurance agent in Fair Oaks, California who was terminated by Ameritas on March 3, 2011 for failing to disclose receipt of a search warrant relating to criminal conversion for personal use of nearly half of one million dollars in customer funds.
Similar to other cases of severe financial misconduct and theft, Hammond persuaded his customers to invest in a "private portfolio" outside of the realm of Ameritas and FINRA, promising outrageously high interest rates to entice customers to transfer large sums of money to Hammond's "private portfolios."
Yet when customers requested to cash out or otherwise inquired about their investments in the fictitious "private portfolio," Hammond bought time by informing customers that such requests would take seven days to process. Instead of returning money to customers, however, Hammond fraudulently obtained cash from another customer, repaying one client by using another client's money.
In addition to his association with Ameritas, Hammond was previously associated with Carillon Investments and, in his capacity as an insurance agent, had been associated with Acacia Life Insurance since 2006 and Union Central Life Insurance since 2003.
If you have invested with Thomas Brown Hammond either within his firms or independently and you suspect fraudulent misconduct has proven harmful to your investments or interests, please call The Law Offices of Jonathan W. Evans & Associates at (800) 699-1881 for an investigation and consultation.