A Texas-based monetary advisor has been discovered responsible of a scheme that concerned murdering his shopper, in line with the Division of Justice.
After a one-week jury trial, Keith Todd Ashley was discovered responsible of wire fraud, mail fraud, carrying a firearm in relation to a criminal offense of violence and financial institution fraud, in line with the DOJ. The federal trial adopted Ashley’s indictment in state courtroom for homicide final 12 months.
Ashley was a monetary advisor with Parkland Securities for about 18 years, in line with his BrokerCheck profile, and in addition labored as a registered nurse, life insurance coverage agent and proprietor of a brewery (he was fired from the agency in 2020 and is the topic of a pending FINRA investigation).
In the course of the course of the scheme, Ashley had gone “to nice lengths to defraud shoppers that trusted him,” in line with U.S. Legal professional Brit Featherston, who referred to as him a “wicked legal.”
In accordance with the unique indictment, Ashley had been defrauding shoppers for years by soliciting them to purchase into unit funding trusts with assured returns, however as an alternative would maintain parts of the raised funds for his personal use, together with spending on his fledgling brewery, at casinos, and bank card, mortgage, pupil mortgage and school tuition funds, and different bills. In whole, Ashley had raised greater than $1.3 million in investor funds because of the schemes.
In accordance with the Fort Price Star-Telegram, one such shopper was Ashley’s pal James Seegan. Ashley finally tried to alter the beneficiary of Seegan’s life insurance coverage coverage to a belief Ashley managed.
On Feb. 19, 2020, Seegan was discovered lifeless in his dwelling with a handgun in his left hand (although Seegan’s spouse instructed police he was right-handed), with a typed suicide word, together with that Ashley would “assist” Seegan’s spouse, in line with reporting from the Star-Telegram. Upon investigating, detectives discovered video footage displaying Ashley had visited Seegan’s home that day, leaving after an hour however returning a couple of minutes later.
Ashley was reportedly the one individual to go to till Seegan’s spouse discovered her lifeless husband later that day. The cops additionally ran drug display screen assessments on Seegan, discovering he had Etomidate in his system, which is an anesthetic agent utilized by medical professionals that may shortly knock somebody out, in line with the Star-Telegram.
Police decided Ashley had killed Seegan and tried to make it appear like a suicide, the Star-Telegram reported.
In accordance with the Justice Division, Ashley nonetheless tried to gather on the life insurance coverage coverage, transferred funds from Seegan’s checking account to himself, and even tried to get a replica of Seegan’s post-mortem report.
“By plotting and inflicting the demise of 1 shopper to steal his cash, Ashley dedicated the final word betrayal of belief and decency and the jury noticed Ashley for who he’s, a con-artist who would go as far as homicide to get what he needed,” Featherston mentioned.
Ashley faces life in jail because of the conviction, in line with the DOJ.
