The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) is seeking its own sanctions against a former financial advisor who has been criminally convicted of securities-related offences.
The OSC announced on Tuesday that it will hold a hearing on Oct. 27, to consider making an enforcement order reciprocating former advisor Mark Allen Dennis’ convictions.
Earlier this year, Dennis “pleaded guilty in the Ontario
Superior Court of Justice to 10 counts of theft by conversion over $5,000,” the OSC says in a statement of allegations.
His plea was accepted, and Dennis was convicted and sentenced to 42 months in prison.
The conduct for which he was sanctioned took place between 2003 and 2010 when he worked as an advisor with TD Waterhouse, and later, Richardson Partners. Prior to that, he played linebacker for the Hamilton Tiger Cats in the Canadian Football League.
According to the OSC’s allegations, as part of his guilty plea “Dennis admitted, among other things, to a pattern of conduct … whereby he would accept money from clients and other individuals (while acting as their investment/financial advisor), typically for the purposes of either investing the funds in commercial real estate secured by mortgages, or in mortgages provided to commercial properties located within southern Ontario.” However, Dennis did not invest the funds as promised, “… instead used them for a variety of other purposes, including his own personal use and for making payments to other investors/clients.”
Dennis was previously found guilty of one count of theft by conversion back in 2012, the OSC notes, which resulted in a two-year sentence and two years of probation. And, in 2011, an Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada (IIROC) hearing panel permanently barred him for allegedly misappropriating approximately $1.4 million from a client between September 2004 and May 2006. He was initially fined just over $1 million, but the OSC upped the fine against Dennis to $1.45 million on appeal.