Ex-LPL Rep Charged With Stealing $1.3M From Client With Dementia

By Jeff Berman

What You Need to Know

• The SEC last year charged a former LPL broker with stealing $1.295 million from an older client suffering from dementia.
• He was arrested in Illinois on Wednesday by the Yorkville Police Department on an arrest warrant.
• The former broker was charged with 23 felonies, including 10 counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person.

A former LPL Financial broker and registered representative was arrested in Illinois on Wednesday by the Yorkville Police Department on an arrest warrant from Kendall County, Illinois, that stemmed from a 2021 investigation into his alleged theft of $1.3 million from an older client with dementia, according to the Yorkville Police Department.

The police, acting with approval from the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office, charged Bradley A. Goodbred with 23 felonies: 10 counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person (a Class 1 Felony), two counts of financial exploitation of an elderly person (Class 2 Felony), seven counts of theft (Class 1 Felony), and four counts of theft (Class 2 Felony), according to police.

On Sept. 29, 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Bradley A. Goodbred with stealing $1.295 million from the client, who had dementia, at the time and then using the funds for his personal and business expenses.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Goodbred worked as a registered representative and investment advisor representative in the Roselle, Illinois, office of an SEC-registered broker-dealer and investment advisor.

Although the SEC complaint did not identify the firm, the former broker was with LPL from 2009 to 2021, according to his report on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s BrokerCheck website.

LPL terminated Goodbred on Jan. 13, 2021, for using “unapproved power of attorney to facilitate distribution of customer funds to a real estate company representative,” according to a disclosure on his report.

LPL did not immediately comment on Friday.

The SEC complaint alleged that, from at least 2012 to 2020, Goodbred solicited one of his clients, who was 97 years old at the time of the SEC complaint, to send him money to make purported investments in real estate investment trusts on her behalf and to transfer the money to one of his businesses.

The complaint also alleged that, to fund some of the purported investments, the client, with the advice and approval of Goodbred, sold securities in her account and transferred the proceeds to Goodbred.

According to the complaint, Goodbred didn’t use the client’s money to make investments in REITs or any other investments on her behalf. Rather, he used the client’s funds for his personal expenses and business expenses unrelated to any purported investments, according to the SEC.

Those personal expenses included credit card debt for himself and his wife, as well as income taxes and auto loans, the SEC complaint said.

As alleged in the SEC complaint, Goodbred repaid the client a total of only $454,141.

The SEC charged Goodbred with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5, and Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, and sought injunctive relief, disgorgement, prejudgment interest and civil penalties.

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Ex-LPL Rep Charged With Stealing $1.3M From Client With Dementia