最近，奥本海默因其前经纪人马克·霍顿（Mark Hotton）的一位前经纪人的行为而承担责任。据金融监管机构称，霍顿（Hotton）于2005年11月加入奥本海默（Oppenheimer），并继续羊毛。金融业监管机构FINRA已针对Hotton提起了纪律处分，该行动仍在审理中。
According to the complaint, Hotton outright stole almost $6 million from his brokerage customers, and directed another $2.5 million to outside businesses that Hotton was affiliated with in some way. These numbers don’t even include the millions of dollars that FINRA believes that Hotton caused by excessively trading, or churning, customer accounts to generate commissions for himself.
The level of fraud that Hotton was engaging in should be shocking if it wasn’t becoming increasingly commonplace. In 2006, a customer filed a lawsuit against Hutton after it was convinced by Hotton to invest $4 million in real estate transactions. The customer claimed that Hotton simply stole the entire investment, which was accomplished by forging contracts, forging mortgages, forging account statements, and directing the investment being made into a shell corporation that he had created with a similar name to the company that was supposed to be invested in. Ultimately, that lawsuit was settled for millions of dollars which Hotton was individually liable for. Yet this lawsuit, its allegations, and its results were never disclosed to other customers as regulations require, permitting Hotton to continue to seek new customers to bilk.
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