Ex-Merrill Adviser Spent Client Cash on Credit Cards, SEC Says

A former investment adviser took more than $1.7 million from his Merrill Lynch clients to pay his credit card bills, the SEC said Aug. 23 in Illinois federal district court.

Marcus Boggs sold clients’ securities without permission and put the proceeds toward his personal debts, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The SEC didn’t identify Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. as Boggs’s former employer in its complaint. But Boggs was listed as an employee with Merrill Lynch’s Chicago office from 2006 to 2018 in a ...