(Bloomberg) — A former Wells Fargo executive at the center of the company’s fake accounts scandal is asserting her right to remain silent amid SEC claims that she misled investors.
Carrie Tolstedt, who was a senior vice president before she left the bank in 2016, cited her Fifth Amendment right not to be a witness against herself more than 100 times in a response filed Friday to the agency’s complaint against her. She noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has called the Fifth Amendment a right to “protect the innocent.”
Tolstedt’s paragraph-by-paragraph response to the SEC’s November complaint accuses the Wall Street regulator of mischaracterizing her statements and bank filings on more than 20 points. She also denies that she was living in San Francisco when the agency sued her there.
The bank agreed last year to pay $3 billion to settle U.S. investigations into more than a decade of widespread consumer abuses under a deal that let it avert criminal charges. Former Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf has settled the agency’s claims against him.
In one instance, Tolstedt invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked if she and other executives were told of “rampant practices to manipulate” customer account volumes in a banker’s 2014 resignation email.
Enu Mainigi, one of Tolstedt’s lawyers, had no immediate comment. An SEC attorney leading the case didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mainigi has previously said his client “acted appropriately, transparently and in good faith at all times.”
The SEC alleges that Tolstedt made statements claiming the bank’s strategy was to sell existing customers new products that they needed, wanted and used, when it was really pushing unneeded and unwanted products and opening unauthorized accounts. Her request for dismissal of one of the agency’s four claims was denied in June.
Tolstedt also asserted her Fifth Amendment rights in an enforcement action brought last year by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
