• July 10, 2018
• WestPark Capital
• Fraud
• Sanction

Joseph Mangiapane is a former Financial Advisor at WestPark Capital in Newport beach, California.  Joseph Mangiapane first entered the securities industry in the 1980s and previously worked for a multitude of brokerage firms in California.

According to publicly available records released by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), on June 14, 2018, the SEC instituted proceedings against Joseph Mangiapane, alleging that “Mangiapane participated in a pump and dump scheme involving the unregistered stock of Asia Global Holdings Corp.

Contemporaneous with the filing of the action on June 14, 2018, the SEC announced that Joseph Mangiapane settled the charges against him and accepted a permanent bar, preventing him from working as a Financial Advisor.

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2018/34-83448.pdf

WestPark Capital has a history of hiring Financial Advisors with histories of customer complaints and regulatory infractions.   In June 2017, Reuters published a report analyzing data issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).  Reuters reported that “about half of the firm’s 95 brokers have FINRA flags on their records” and that “more than 47% of Westpark brokers once worked at firms that were later expelled by FINRA.”

A link to the Reuters article is at https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-finra-brokers/.

Separately, FINRA has fined Westpark Capital for failure to supervise its Financial Advisors’ sales practices, many of whom have multiple customer complaints, judgments, liens, or regulatory events disclosed on the FINRA BrokerCheck.

The Wolper Law Firm, P.A. represents investors nationwide in securities litigation and arbitration on a contingency fee basis. Matt Wolper, the Managing Principal of the Wolper Law Firm, P.A., is a trial lawyer who has handled hundreds of securities cases during his career involving a wide range of products, strategies and securities. Prior to representing investors, he was a partner with a national law firm, where he represented some of the largest banks and brokerage firms in the world in securities matters. We can be reached at 800.931.8452 or by email at mwolper@wolperlawfirm.com.