Christopher Booth Kennedy (CRD #4498061, Simi Valley, California)

November 17, 2023 – An Order Accepting Offer of Settlement was issued in which Kennedy was barred from association with any FINRA member in all capacities. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Kennedy consented to the sanction and to the entry of findings that he churned and excessively traded customer accounts as a registered representative of his member firm. The findings stated that Kennedy used his control over these accounts to direct an excessive series of transactions that generated commissions for his own benefit at the customers’ expense. Kennedy made an average of 102 trades per account per month representing net trading of more than $6.9 million per account or approximately 13 times the average account value. As the result of Kennedy’s excessive trading, his customers collectively lost over $2.3 million in value from their accounts and paid more than $715,000 in total trading costs and margin interest, including over $595,000 in commissions. By churning customer accounts, Kennedy willfully violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and violated FINRA Rule 2020. In addition, by excessively trading customer accounts, Kennedy willfully violated Reg BI. The findings also stated that Kennedy made fake account statements to hide the results of his trading from two customers, the husband-and-wife co-trustees of a family trust account. Over a six-month period, Kennedy prepared and sent six fake account statements to these customers from his personal email. Kennedy supplemented these fake account statements by making a series of other false statements to these customers inflating their account value. In one instance, Kennedy sent a fake account statement to these customers purporting to show an ending balance of $5.2 million and a gain in value of over $3 million. In fact, under Kennedy’s control the account had lost nearly all of its value and only approximately $160,000 in value remained in the account. The findings also included that during FINRA’s investigation of his trading, Kennedy repeatedly lied in response to requests for information and on-the-record testimony. In particular, Kennedy falsely denied preparing fake account statements for customers and falsely claimed that his personal email had been hacked and that an imposter had sent all but one of the fake account statements. (FINRA Case #2021072389001)