The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Ross Barish, a registered representative at Joseph Stone Capital, LLC, a broker-dealer located in Mineola, New York, for defrauding sixteen retail customers.

The SEC's complaint alleges that Barish engaged in a high-cost, in-and-out trading strategy in customer accounts without conducting reasonable due diligence to determine whether the trading strategy could deliver even a minimal profit for his customers. According to the complaint, Barish also engaged in widespread unauthorized trading in customer accounts. As alleged in the complaint, Barish's strategy resulted in over $800,000 in losses to customers, while netting Barish over $400,000 in commissions.

The SEC's complaint, filed in federal court in Manhattan, charges Barish with violations of the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The SEC's complaint seeks permanent injunctive relief, disgorgement plus prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Tuongvy Le, David Stoelting, Roseann Daniello, Ricky Tong, Michael Fioribello, and Sandeep Satwalekar in the New York Regional Office. The litigation will be led by Mr. Stoelting and Ms. Le. The case is being supervised by Sanjay Wadhwa. The examination that led to the investigation was conducted by the Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations' Risk Analysis Examination Team.