Silver Law Group Client Prevails In Significant FINRA Arbitration Claiming Failure To Warn About Bad Financial Advisor

When a broker-dealer terminates a broker, it doesn’t mean the problems are gone. Some firms continue to deal with those problems for some time. In the case of United Planners’ Financial Services of America, they are still handling the fallout from the firm’s former broker, Philip Anthony Riposo (CRD# 400056), who was fired in March of 2022.

United Planners and Riposo’s clients, Susan Cushing and Curtis Miller brought a FINRA arbitration against  United Planners’ in 2023, and were recently awarded $346,000 in damages, plus interest, in a recent FINRA arbitration.

“When United Planners’ fired Riposo, he continued to raise money, and that’s what my client got the FINRA arbitration award for,” said Silver Law Group founder Scott Silver, who represented Cushing and Miller in the arbitration. “Riposo had a counter-narrative, saying that he had resigned rather than fired. And my clients believed him.”

In their claim, the clients alleged “negligence, failures to supervise and warn,” along with other charges allegations related to ‘Nationwide annuities and other securities.’”

United did not discover Riposo’s fraud until one of his customers filed a complaint, according to the Arizona Corporation Commission. Once confronted, Riposo admitted to the firm that he had been defrauding customers for 30 years. The firm also paid $1 million in fines to state regulators on top of the $1.08 million paid to Riposo’s defrauded clients.

In Riposo’s CRD disclosure from his termination by United Planners, the firm described the reasons:

United Planners prohibits Financial Professionals from creating and distributing fictitious statements to clients. Mr. Riposo was found and admitted to creating and providing clients with fictitious statements from Zurich Kemper Investments. Additionally, United Planners does not allow Financial Professionals to receive checks from clients payable to their Doing-Business-As (DBA) name. Mr. Riposo was found and admitted to receiving and depositing checks from clients made out to Riposo Asset Management (his DBA) that were used for personal expenses.

Five customer disputes have been filed since Riposo’s termination.  Two were settled, and one was closed without action. The remaining two that are “pending” were filed on 9/20/2023 and 3/25/2024 with similar allegations of breaches of fiduciary duty, contracts, and negligence, but no amounts of damages listed.

Riposo passed away in June of 2023 at the age of 72. He began in the industry in 1972.

Silver Law Group Represents Investors in FINRA Arbitration Claims

Silver Law Group can help. Silver Law Group represents investors who have been victims of investment fraud. Scott Silver is the chairman of the Securities and Financial Fraud Group of the American Association of Justice and represents investors nationwide and abroad in securities investment fraud cases. Please contact Scott Silver of Silver Law Group for a no-cost consultation at ssilver@silverlaw.com or toll-free at (800) 975-4345.