INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (CN) - The Missouri Securities Commissioner has filed a cease and desist order against an attorney, prohibiting him and his company from selling unregistered securities. Kent Desselle allegedly lost $400,000 of a woman's savings and did not tell her for eight years.
Desselle was supposed to invest the money in low-risk funds. A hearing on the order is scheduled for Oct. 24 in Kansas City.
The commissioner says the woman became concerned when Desselle's involvement with the Sam and Lindsey Porter Support Center, which honors two children killed by their father in 2004, became public this year.
Desselle took $20,000 in donations to the center and invested it in his own business, New Century Investments, without telling the children's mother. After complaints, Desselle returned the money to the original bank account with accrued interest.
According to the commissioner's report, Desselle began investing for the woman in 1996. She asked Desselle to start taking out her investments in February this year. Desselle responded that her funds were secure. After the woman asked again, Desselle allegedly told her that through a series of bad decisions on his part, her funds were lost sometime between 1998 and 2000 and that all the funds the woman has received since then have been through Desselle's personal earnings. Investigators claim that at least one of the $2,000 checks the woman got from Desselle was written on the children's fund account.
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