Windsor Street Capital, a NY-based broker-dealer, along with John Telfer, its former AML officer, agreed to settle SEC charges that the firm failed to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) for $24.8 million in suspicious transactions, including those occurring in accounts controlled by microcap stock financiers Raymond Barton and William Goode, who are separately charged today by the SEC with conducting a pump-and-dump scheme.

SEC Enforcement Division alleges that Meyers Associates – as Windsor Street was formerly known - and Telfer should have known about the suspicious circumstances behind many transactions occurring in customer accounts. Customers like Barton and Goode:

• allegedly deposited large blocks of penny stocks,
• liquidated them typically amid substantial promotional activity,
• then transferred the proceeds away from the firm. 

It’s further alleged that the shares deposited by Barton and Goode could not be sold legally because no registration statement was in effect and no registration exemption was available.Rather than conduct a reasonable inquiry into the deposits, Meyers Associates allegedly accepted registration exemption claims by Barton and Goode at face value.

Meyers Associates and Telfer are scheduled to appear before an SEC administrative law judge.

In the SEC’s separate complaint Barton and Goode, along with Matthew Briggs, Kenneth Manzo, and Justin Sindelman, it was agreed to Barton, Goode, and Briggs would pay over $8.7Mn to settle SEC charges, while Manzo would pay $95,000.  The litigation continues against Sindelman.