The NASD has barred James B. Moorehead, a former broker with AmSouth Investment Services, from the securities industry for life for alleged fraud, forgery, and falsification of documents in connection with variable annuity sales.
The transactions took place from March 2000 to April 2001 while Moorehead was a registered representative of AmSouth Investment Services, a unit of the Birmingham, Ala., banking company. NASD alleged that Moorehead misrepresented the risks associated with investing in variable annuities and purposefully omitted risk disclosure statements from the performance hypotheticals his firm sent to customers.
NASD said Moorehead, of Starkville, Miss., neither admitted nor denied the charges but consented to the regulatory body's findings. These included an allegation that he tried to make his variable annuity recommendations appear suitable by directing his sales assistant to falsify the suitability information on the purchase authorization forms and on confidential client profiles.
The NASD also charged Moorehead's assistant, Angela C. Wynne and is investigating AmSouth's supervision of the two.
