Ex-Advisor Solicited Shopper Cash for Movie Enterprise, Regulators Say

A former Citigroup monetary advisor faces proposed enforcement motion by a federal banking regulator over allegations she solicited an older shopper to speculate a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} in her movie manufacturing enterprise.

The U.S. Workplace of the Comptroller of the Forex seeks to bar Helen G. Caldwell, previously employed by Citibank and Citigroup World Markets in Chicago, from taking part in conducting the affairs of any federally insured financial institution, credit score union or related entity.

The motion, introduced in a submitting this month, follows the Monetary Trade Regulatory Authority’s transfer earlier this yr to bar Caldwell, recognized in a submitting as Helen Grace Caldwell, for declining to testify in its investigation of her conduct.

Caldwell, a FINRA-registered dealer with Citi from June 8, 2012, by way of Nov. 10, 2021, engaged in self-dealing at an aged shopper’s expense — over $325,000 in checks written over two years — and hid her exercise from each Citibank and the affiliated brokerage, the OCC alleges.

Throughout her close to decade with Citi, Caldwell grew to become 50% proprietor of Canal Productions, a movie firm, based on the OCC submitting. Beginning in late 2016, she grew to become monetary advisor to a Citibank and brokerage shopper, “Buyer A,” an older lady dwelling on her Social Safety earnings who “could have been notably susceptible,” the OCC says.

Round Feb. 1, 2018, Caldwell “started soliciting Buyer A to put money into Canal Productions” and didn’t disclose to Citi that she was doing so or “that Buyer A, actually, invested,” the regulator alleges.

That month, the client wrote two checks from her Citibank account totaling $125,000 to Canal Productions, then wrote 10 checks totaling $200,500 to Canal from October 2018 to February 2020, the OCC submitting says.

The checks had been deposited into Canal’s Citibank account, which Caldwell managed, and had been used partly to pay Caldwell at the least $99,000 from October 2018 to February 2020, it says. Citi coverage prohibited Caldwell’s alleged exercise with the client, based on the OCC, which famous that she resigned from the corporate in November 2021.

The Web Film Database lists Helen Grace Caldwell as a producer, director and actress, together with a credit score as govt producer in a 2022 movie known as “Give Until It Hurts,” described as “a darkish comedy set within the 80′s about two brothers looking for the return of their inheritance that their deceased mom donated to a televangelist.”