News Releases

In the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey, the Texas State Securities Board is cautioning investors to watch out for opportunistic investment scams. "We know from experience that disasters can bring out scammers who seek to profit from the misfortune of others,” Texas Securities...

The Texas State Securities Board on Aug. 1 appointed Travis J. Iles as Securities Commissioner, effective Sept. 1. Iles, a 16-year veteran of the agency, has served as Deputy Commissioner since September 2016. He previously served as Assistant Director of the Enforcement Division and worked as an...

Michael Keith Parish , a San Antonio investment adviser, has been suspended for 30 days and fined $5,000 for for violating Texas State Securities Board rules regarding custody of client funds. Texas Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered the Disciplinary Order on July 18. Parish violated the...

The following are summaries of administrative actions and orders taken from April 1 through June 30, 2017. Trevor M. Carney: Fined, Reprimanded Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered a Disciplinary Order on June 21 that fined and reprimanded Trevor M. Carney , a securities agent in Austin, for...

Lawrence Allen DeShetler, an investment adviser and former certified financial planner in The Woodlands, pleaded guilty to mail fraud June 8 in U.S. District Court in Beaumont, Acting U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston announced. DeShetler fraudulently obtained $1.9 million from five clients of his...

Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered a Disciplinary Order June 2 that fined and reprimanded a Chicago-based securities dealer whose compliance officer repeatedly wired funds to individuals pretending to be a 75-year-old Texas client of the firm. In three separate transactions in 2015, Daniel...

Nearly $341,000 in restitution has been paid to investors in a company whose fraud stretched from Southeast Asia to southeast Texas to West Africa. Alan Derek Jernigan , who sold investments in deals that would purportedly export medical test kits to the Philippines and Malaysia, was sentenced to 10...

Dback Capital Inc . of Dallas and its president, Kenneth Edward Shelton , agreed to stop violating the law by selling stock in two companies to Texas residents. Texas Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered the Agreed and Cease Desist Order on May 22. Neither Dback Capital nor Shelton are...

Texas Securities Commissioner John Morgan entered an Emergency Cease and Desist Order on May 5 alleging that two investment promoters who are soliciting funds for a stock scheme are falsely claiming to be an existing investment advisory firm in Dallas. According to the order, Raymond Hill and Mark...

One-time entertainment promoter David Elliott Rosen of Austin was sentenced to 10 years to prison on May 4 for for a nearly $2 million fraud based on the sale of investments in his concert-promotion business. Rosen pleaded guilty to securities fraud in Travis County State District Court. He was...