LPL Sales Assistant Barred From Industry

A former sales assistant with LPL Financial was expelled from the brokerage industry last week for misappropriating customer funds.

Susan Glover allegedly converted funds from an LPL business bank account to which she had access, according to a filing FINRA posted last week. The regulator did not disclose the amount of money involved.

Glover was associated with LPL Financial as a non-registered fingerprint individual, FINRA said. As a sales assistant, she spoke to clients about their securities accounts, handled operational requests for customer accounts and accessed customer accounts for the registered representatives she assisted, according to FINRA's filing.

Glover refused to cooperate with the regulator's investigation and declined to provide testimony.

In a settlement agreement with FINRA, Glover neither admitted nor denied the charges, but consented to an entry of the regulator's findings. Her attorney, Joe Wolfe of Wolfe & Houlehan in Lexington, Ky., declined to comment on the matter, as did Tony Vignieri, a spokesperson for LPL Financial.

"Sales assistants are not commonly engaged in conduct that FINRA cares about," said Brian Rubin, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. Sutherland isn't part of this case, but it conducted a recent study on litigated enforcement actions. "Here, it appears that the sales assistant did not want to continue in the securities industry and therefore refused to provide information to FINRA," Rubin said. 

Glover was dismissed by LPL Financial on Dec. 7, 2012, according to FINRA's filing.

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