A federal judge in California has sentenced Philip Horn, a former Wells Fargo broker who pleaded guilty to defrauding more than a dozen clients, to two years in jail.
The judge, Gary A. Feess, on Monday noted in handing down the sentence that Mr. Horn had already paid more than $1 million in restitution, according to a news release issued by André Birotte Jr.,United States attorney for the central district of California.
Mr. Horn was a broker for Wells Fargo in Los Angeles. For more than two years, he executed and canceled trades in clients’ portfolios, pocketing the profits. Wells Fargo uncovered the fraud in the fall of 2011. Last year, Mr. Horn pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
In article inJanuary, The New York Times highlighted how his actions point to persistent problems with policing the brokerage industry, even after the wave of rules enacted since the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff’s giant Ponzi scheme in 2008.
The two-year sentence is longer than the 18 months the United States attorney’s office had recommended. A spokeswoman for Wells Fargo said the bank believed that the court “acted appropriately in the resolution of the issues presented to it.â€
