Ex-Newbridge Securities Broker Sentenced to Six Years in Prison “-” No Surprise Here.

The Palm Beach Post reports that Brent Deviney had a gambling addiction.  He blames that gambling addiction for the theft of funds from his in-laws.  If anyone had looked at Deviney’s record with any sort of jaundiced eye, they would have realized that he was a ticking bomb waiting to go off.

For all the brouhaha about the FINRA Brokercheck system, this case pretty much confirms that Brokercheck does not help people avoid bad brokers.  Prior to his problems at Newbridge, he was accused of forging customer names on account documents so that he could become the servicing broker on annuity accounts.  The State of Florida delayed his registration for 3 months, fined him $5,000 and put him on a supervision agreement for 2 years.  FINRA suspended his license for 6 months (but gave him credit for the 3 months that Florida meted out) and fined him the same $5,000 that Florida did.  In fact, FINRA gave him full credit for the money paid to Florida.  But he managed to stay in the business because a firm was willing to hire him.

Fast forward a couple of years and, SURPRISE!, he’s stealing money from his in-laws and his wife’s IRA.  He was also the subject of a million dollar arbitration award, but that was after he was fired.  Based on the description of the claims, it appears that at least some of the money he stole from his wife came from a Merrill Lynch account.  His wife and his mother-in-law’s estate both obtained awards against him.

Society will get its revenge.  This miscreant will be put away for 6 years starting in a couple of weeks.  That will give him plenty of time to think about what went wrong here.

That’s the view of one lawyer from Jupiter, Palm Beach County, Florida.  I’m Marc Dobin

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