[ad_1]
A former monetary advisor will spend life in jail for his position in a fraud that ended within the homicide of a shopper and trying to stage it as a suicide as a way to accumulate on a life insurance coverage coverage.
Keith Todd Ashley, a Texas-based former advisor, registered nurse and brewery proprietor, was convicted of wire, mail and financial institution fraud and “carrying a firearm in relation to a criminal offense of violence” after a one-week jury trial final October. On Thursday, he was sentenced to life by U.S. District Decide Amos L. Mazzant. Dallas FBI Particular Agent in Cost Chad Yarbough stated he hoped the sentence would offer therapeutic for many who had been “endlessly impacted by the greed and deceit” of Ashley.
“Keith Ashley funded his lavish life-style and tried to rescue his failing enterprise by robbing his purchasers of monetary safety, and when that wasn’t sufficient, he robbed certainly one of his life,” Yarbough stated.
Ashley labored for about 18 years as a monetary advisor with Parkland Securities, based on his BrokerCheck profile, although he was fired in 2020 and was later barred by FINRA after his conviction final yr.
Beginning in 2016, Ashley started stealing cash from purchasers by promising them he would make investments their funds in unit funding trusts with assured returns, based on the DOJ indictment.
As an alternative, he handed the cash to different purchasers in a Ponzi-like style, used it to pay private payments and on line casino, bank card, mortgage, pupil mortgage and school tuition funds, and to maintain his flailing brewery enterprise afloat. By the top, Ashley had raised greater than $1.3 million in investor funds.
One of many affected purchasers (unnamed by the DOJ) was James Seegan, based on the Fort Price Star-Telegram. Ashley started transferring cash out of Seegan’s private accounts into his personal, and altering the beneficiary of Seegan’s life insurance coverage coverage right into a belief Ashley managed.
On Feb. 19, 2020, Seegan was discovered useless in his residence of a gunshot wound, with a typed suicide word indicating that Ashley would “assist” Seegan’s spouse after his demise, based on the Star-Telegram.
However some issues didn’t add up for police, for instance a handgun was present in Seegan’s left hand, although his spouse informed authorities he was right-handed. Police then discovered video footage displaying Ashley had visited Seegan’s home that day, leaving after an hour and returning just a few minutes later.
Police believed Ashley had been the one individual to go to the home till Seegan’s spouse discovered her husband’s physique later that day, based on the Star-Telegram. Police ran drug exams on Seegan and discovered he had an anesthetic agent in his system that can be utilized to rapidly knock somebody out.
Police finally decided Ashley killed Seegan and staged the suicide, based on the Star-Telegram. However even after Seegan’s demise, Ashley tried to gather on the life insurance coverage coverage, going so far as to attempting to get a replica of Seegan’s post-mortem report, based on the DOJ.
[ad_2]