According to FINRA, Christopher Booth Kennedy was barred from association with any FINRA member in all capacities for churning customer accounts, creating fake account statements to hide trading results, and lying to FINRA during its investigation.

Kennedy used his control over customer accounts to direct an excessive series of transactions that generated commissions for his own benefit at customers' expense. He made an average of 102 trades per account per month, representing net trading of more than $6.9 million per account or approximately 13 times the average account value. As a result of Kennedy's excessive trading, his customers collectively lost over $2.3 million in value from their accounts and paid more than $715,000 in total trading costs and margin interest, including over $595,000 in commissions.

To hide the results of his trading from two customers who were the co-trustees of a family trust account, Kennedy prepared and sent six fake account statements from his personal email over a six-month period. In one instance, Kennedy sent a fake account statement purporting to show an ending balance of $5.2 million and a gain of over $3 million, when in fact the account had lost nearly all of its value and only approximately $160,000 remained.

During FINRA's investigation, Kennedy repeatedly lied in response to requests for information and on-the-record testimony. Kennedy falsely denied preparing fake account statements and falsely claimed that his personal email had been hacked and that an imposter had sent all but one of the fake statements. By churning customer accounts, Kennedy willfully violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, Rule 10b-5, FINRA Rule 2020, and Regulation Best Interest.

This case represents some of the most egregious misconduct a broker can commit: churning accounts to generate commissions, creating fake statements to hide massive losses, and lying to regulators. Investors should monitor their accounts closely for excessive trading activity and always verify account values through official statements from the firm rather than documents provided by individual brokers.