FINRA Bars Former Wells Fargo Representative Adrienne Marie Llamas (Long Beach, California) From Securities Industry Following Cherry-Picking Scheme with Convicted Former Wells Fargo Broker Philip D. Horn

Adrienne Marie Llamas (CRD #4203041, Registered Supervisor, Long Beach, California) submitted a Letter of Acceptance, Waiver and Consent in which she was barred from association with any FINRA member in any capacity. See FINRA Case #2011030103501. Llamas was registered with Wells Fargo Advisors, LLC from June 2008 to November 2011.

Llamas worked in the operations or back-office area of Wells Fargo in the Los Angeles area, and held the title of operational liaison. Without admitting or denying the findings, Llamas consented to the described sanction and to the entry of findings that she participated in a cancel and rebill scheme with Wells Fargo registered representative, Philip D. Horn (“Horn”), who plead guilty to federal charges of wire fraud and also has been barred from the securities industry by FINRA.

The findings state that Llamas, at the instructions of Horn, cancelled and rebilled numerous transactions between customer accounts and accounts that Horn owned or controlled. Cancelling and rebilling profitable trades between accounts is a fraudulent practice known as cherry-picking. Llamas exclusively processed approximately 90 fraudulent cancel-rebills. The rebills transferred approximately $4,127,669.56 in securities transactions from customer accounts to accounts Horn controlled.

The findings also stated that most of the cancel-rebills Llamas processed transferred profitable trades from individual customers’ accounts into an account that Horn owned or controlled, which allowed Horn to convert these transactions to his own benefit. At other times, also at Horn’s direction, Llamas rebilled losing trades from Horn’s account to the customers, or rebilled between individual customers’ accounts securities positions that were profitable or carried unrealized losses. Overall, the fraudulent cancel-rebills resulted in approximately $732,948.50 net gains to Horn, who paid Llamas approximately $6,200.

The findings further included that Llamas caused her firm’s books and records to be maintained inaccurately. FINRA found that by rebilling profitable and losing securities transactions between customer accounts and accounts that Horn controlled, to Horn’s benefit and to the detriment of customers, Llamas willfully violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and FINRA Rules 2010 and 2020.

If you were a client of Horn or Wells Fargo and suffered investment losses, please call Sonn Law Group at 844-689-5754 or complete our “contact form.” Sonn Law Group is a nationally recognized law firm representing individuals, trusts, corporations and institutions in claims against brokerage firms, banks and insurance companies.