Investor Lawyers Blog
On September 14, 2018, the SEC initiated a civil action (the “Complaint”) in federal court in the Southern District of Indiana against Ms. Tamara Rae Steele (CRD# 3227494) (“Steele”), as well as her eponymous investment advisory firm, Steele Financial, Inc. (“Steele Financial”), alleging that Ms. Steele had defrauded a number of her advisory clients through recommendations to invest in certain high-risk securities issued by Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc. (“BRS”), in a scheme that purportedly generated $2.5 million in commissions for Ms. Steele’s benefit. According to publicly available information through FINRA, Ms. Steele, a former middle school math teacher, first began working as a financial in or around 1999. Most recently, she was affiliated with broker-dealer Comprehensive Asset Management and Servicing, Inc. (CRD# 43814) (“CAMAS”) from January 2009 – July 2017. Ms. Steele’s CRD record showing her employment history and customer claims filed with FINRA is accessible below.
As alleged by the SEC in its Complaint, Ms. Steele was terminated by her former employer, CAMAS, when the “broker-dealer learned that [she] was selling BRS securities outside the scope of her employment with the firm and without the firm’s knowledge and approval, a practice called ‘selling away’ from the firm.” Specifically, the SEC has alleged that Ms. Steele fraudulently recommended “over $13 million in extremely risky securities issued by a private company, Behavioral Recognition Systems, Inc. (‘BRS’).” Further, the SEC has alleged that Ms. Steele violated her fiduciary duty to her clients — many of whom were unaccredited retail investors who were either current or former teachers and public-school employees — by purportedly failing to disclose that she was earning “[c]omissions ranging from 8% to 18% of the funds raised for BRS.” The SEC Complaint is accessible below: