Barred Adviser Admits $3.3M Fraud Against LPL, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade
Former financial adviser Andrew M. Komarow, who was barred from the industry by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, pleaded guilty Oct. 22 to wire fraud. Prosecutors said his scheme cost three financial services companies – LPL Financial, Fidelity, and TD Ameritrade – more than $3.3 million.
Komarow, 37, of Avon, Conn., entered the plea in Hartford before U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Connecticut. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. He remains free on a $50,000 bond, and sentencing has not been scheduled.
Prosecutors said that between about October 2022 and February 2023, Komarow initiated about $8.9 million in electronic transfers into multiple brokerage accounts, many of them newly opened. The bank accounts the money came from did not hold enough to cover the transfers. He then used the credited balances for high-risk, short-term options trading, trying to earn profits fast enough to cover the shortfall. The companies’ losses totaled $3,352,507, according to the office.
The practice, known as free-riding, exploits the “immediate access” credit some brokerages extend while an incoming transfer clears. A federal grand jury indicted Komarow on Feb. 4, 2026, on 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of securities fraud. He was arrested March 2 and initially pleaded not guilty.
Before his firings, Komarow built a Connecticut practice focused on special-needs and neurodivergent clients. He operated under names including Planning Across the Spectrum and The Neurodiversity Index, according to the SEC. He was registered with LPL from April 2016 and was an investment adviser representative with Private Advisor Group from August 2016, according to a Connecticut Department of Banking consent order.
How It Unraveled
The SEC laid out the conduct in a December 2023 civil complaint. Komarow settled that case without admitting or denying its allegations.
According to the complaint, the scheme began Oct. 13, 2022, with a $200,000 transfer into his personal brokerage account from a bank account holding less than $60,000. After that brokerage restricted his account, the SEC alleged, Komarow persuaded it to restore his access. By mid-November he had opened seven more accounts there and requested 10 transfers of $250,000 each from a bank account holding less than $4,000.
Private Advisor Group fired him in November 2022. The SEC said the brokerage’s restrictions had also cut off his access to his advisory clients’ accounts.
Days later, the SEC alleged, Komarow opened a personal account at his own broker-dealer. He completed the online paperwork with two employees’ login credentials and claimed liquid net worth of more than $1 million to get options approval. On Dec. 1 and 2, 2022, he requested $3 million in transfers from a bank account holding $100 or less. Those trades left the firm with a negative balance of $3.09 million, the complaint said. InvestmentNews has identified that firm as LPL.
When the firm’s compliance department asked whether he had knowingly submitted the unfunded transfers, Komarow replied by email: “I don’t have the funds. I do not know what I was thinking when this happened,” according to the complaint. LPL fired him Dec. 6, 2022.
The SEC also barred Kerry Lee Broderick, a Gloucester, Mass., representative whom Komarow supervised, in June 2024. The commission found she told LPL, where both were registered, that she had placed trades she had not placed, and assured it that funds were coming. Komarow told her in a chat message to “lie, whatever you have to do, to get those trades placed,” the SEC said. Broderick settled without admitting or denying the findings.
FINRA permanently barred Komarow in June 2023 after he refused to provide documents and testimony. In the SEC’s civil case, he consented to a judgment in December 2023 that permanently enjoined him from violating antifraud rules. The judgment also bars him from trading without settled cash in the account. The SEC then barred him from the industry in February 2024.
The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards permanently barred him in January 2024 after he did not respond to its inquiries.
Connecticut’s banking commissioner barred him from the state’s securities business the same month. The commissioner set a $100,000 fine but stayed it after Komarow submitted a sworn affidavit that he could not pay. The state’s order said none of his clients were harmed and that the department had received no client complaints.
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