It has been nearly two years since James “Jim” Seegan’s wife and son found him dead in his Carrollton, Texas, home office.
His former friend and financial advisor,
Still, FINRA hasn’t suspended or barred Ashley, 49, from the financial services industry. The agency didn’t take the first formal steps to do so until last month when
The slow walk to a FINRA bar is a potential point of frustration for investor advocates and a source of confusion to members of the general public who see the allegations against Ashley and ask why they don't result in an immediate ejection from the industry.
Veteran securities attorney Bill Singer said the matter is a complex one in which FINRA procedure, the integrity of several ongoing criminal cases and the protection of a suspect’s constitutional rights collide.
“Somebody that's a public customer would be frustrated, while somebody else who is a civil libertarian would say, ‘Well of course. That's how it should be. Why should FINRA be able to force this guy out of the industry in order to get him to answer questions in violation of his Fifth Amendment right?’ The fact of the matter is, they can’t,” Singer said. “Why don't they just get rid of him? Because he's presumed innocent until proven guilty. It seems likely that he’s going to be barred from the industry, which would be the least of his problems, but it just takes time. And as I've heard frequently and as I've argued for many years, the frustration is how long it takes.”
The crime scene
According to federal court documents, the investigation that led to Ashley’s arrest began on Feb. 19, 2020. That was when Seegan’s wife, Sakdida, called to report that her husband had been fatally shot in the upstairs office of their home.
A typed suicide note was found near the 62-year-old man’s body, but Investigators who surveyed the crime scene deemed the situation suspicious.
Police said Seegan had a 9mm pistol in his left hand and a gunshot wound to the left side of his head, but neither the gun nor the shell casings had any fingerprints.
Blood splattered the office, but there was no blood on the suicide note. Police also found it odd that the right-handed Seegan was holding the weapon in his non-dominant hand, and Sakdida Seegan reported that her husband did not own any firearms.
On the morning of his death, Seegan had a planned meeting with Ashley to draw blood. The advisor told his client he needed the blood sample for life insurance purposes.
Court documents said security cameras captured Ashley entering the Seegan home at 9:30 a.m. About 45 minutes later, a loud noise activated another security camera in the garage.
A suicide note was printed from Seegan’s computer at 10:17 a.m., and security cameras captured Ashley leaving the home at 10:21 a.m. Police at the scene determined that the security camera in the garage would not activate from a car starting or bookshelf falling, but would activate from a gunshot.
Investigators found the drug etomidate in Seegan’s system at the time of his death. Court documents said that etomidate is used before intubation and renders a hospital patient paralyzed within 60 seconds of injection.
It is also a drug that Ashley had access to because he worked as a registered nurse in addition to being a financial advisor and owner of the Nine Band Brewing Company in Allen, Texas.
The aftermath
Following Seegan’s death, Ashley attempted to access Seegan’s financial accounts. Court documents said when he was unsuccessful, Ashley returned to Seegan’s home and instructed his client’s 7-year-old son to help him.
Police said once he had access to Seegan’s cellphone, Ashley deleted text messages between himself and Seegan and transferred $20,000 from Seegan’s account to an account of his own.
Authorities later discovered computer searches by Ashley inquiring whether there is deferred adjudication for manslaughter and if a doorbell camera would record a sound. Court documents said Ashley’s cellphone also contained a draft of a personal suicide note that indicated that he was in serious financial trouble and had stolen more than $100,000 from his mother-in-law.
Seegan had a $2 million life insurance policy, and police said the beneficiary of the policy was changed from from Seegan’s wife to a trust controlled by Ashley just weeks before the slaying. Sakdida Seegan told police the form changing the beneficiary of the policy did not have her real signature.
A search warrant executed on Ashley’s property in September 2020 led to the discovery of multiple apparently forged documents, including a document claiming that Seegan was giving Ashley a “non-repayable gift” of $65,000. Investigators also found a copy of Seegan’s autopsy report that Ashley had asked a brewery employee to request from medical examiners.
Following a nine-month investigation, a federal grand jury indicted Ashley in November 2020 for six counts of wire fraud. In December 2020, a state grand jury in Dallas County indicted Ashley for murder.
In March 2021, a superseding federal indictment added additional wire fraud counts, two mail fraud counts and one count of carrying or possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.
In April 2021, a Dallas County grand jury indicted Ashley on a capital murder charge, meaning the charge now carries a potential penalty in Texas of life in prison without parole or death.
Last year also saw federal courts deem Ashley dangerous, a flight risk and a risk of obstructing justice. His attempts to have his pretrial detention revoked or amended have been denied.
Federal court records indicate a final pretrial conference for the case is scheduled for the morning of July 5, with jury selection and a trial to follow that same day.
The FINRA complaint
Investigators believe Seegan is one of at least nine clients Ashley defrauded for a combined $1.9 million in an ongoing Ponzi scheme. For nearly seven years until Seegan’s death, Ashley allegedly carried out the scheme undetected by his former brokerage, Parkland Securities in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Prior to his termination, Ashley spent 18 years with Parkland, according to BrokerCheck. He was fired on suspicion of undisclosed outside business activities and a failure to provide the firm with notice of private securities transactions.
Besides a client complaint that was denied, his only other disclosure is an arrest in 1991.
The FINRA Department of Enforcement took its first disciplinary action against Ashley in the wake of the fatal shooting on Dec. 10, 2021. Ashley was notified that he had violated FINRA Rules
Noting his termination from Parkland, the complaint states that Ashley remains subject to FINRA' s jurisdiction, “although Ashley is no longer registered or associated with a FINRA member.”
Singer, who worked as a regional attorney for FINRA predecessor the National Association of Securities Dealers, said rule 8210 is the path to Ashley being barred. But the already-lengthy process will require more time, and more court dates, before it can come to a resolution.
“Some people euphemistically think Rule 8210 is a request. It's not a request. It's a demand, and the demand is either you cooperate in our investigation, or there will be consequences,” Singer said. “Ninety-nine percent of the time, the consequence of a respondent refusing to fully cooperate is that they will be barred.”
In its complaint, FINRA is seeking that sanctions covered under
But Singer points out that FINRA would not be barring Ashley for the suspected murder or ongoing Ponzi scheme as the entity is unable to bar an individual accused of committing a disqualifying crime if that person has not been convicted.
Instead, the failure to provide testimony is key, and Singer believes that testimony won’t be coming as Ashley’s legal team continues to fight his criminal charges.
“The thing is, FINRA doesn't just ask you to produce documents. They can ask for what we call an OTR, or an on-the-record interview, and here's the wrinkle with that. When you walk into the conference room, you're sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Singer said. “That may look like a cute moment on television, but in reality it has a very serious impact because when you testify under oath, you do so under penalty of perjury. Which means if you lie to FINRA, even though they're not a government agency … they can send the transcript to the DA's office and to the Department of Justice and say under penalty of perjury you were asked this question and you lied.”
The tricky part
Singer said the scenario presents a situation where most defense attorneys will opt for invocation of a client’s Fifth Amendment rights, leading to a failure to comply with FINRA’s request for testimony and eventual sanctions.
With limited ability to act sans a criminal conviction, the long game is the only option, Singer said.
“The interesting part about this case is that we still have an individual who stands accused of murder. Well, what do you want FINRA to do about it? They're not prosecutors. They don't have rights under law to impanel a grand jury. They can't charge him,” he said. “Additionally, if there are 10 check marks that the criminal prosecutors want to obtain by investigating this guy and after three months there's two left that they can't get answers to, very often they will contact FINRA and whether it's appropriate or not legal or not, they’ll ask … ‘have you guys done an on-the-record interview?’
“What you have here is the intersection of federal and state criminal power coming headlong into some weird thing called self-regulation.”
Singer said the complexity of the case makes him think of when he went to see the movie A Man for All Seasons when he was a boy in 1966. He cites the film as a life-changing moment and the reason he wanted to become an attorney.
He recalls a moment from the film when Sir Thomas More, played by Paul Scofield, refuses a suggestion from his son-in-law to break the law while on trial for his life.
“He asks his son-in-law, if you were chasing the devil and you cornered the devil, would you break all the laws of the realm in order to arrest him? The son-in-law said of course, and that's where you're wrong,” Singer said. “Because in the moment that there's no laws, there's nothing to protect you from the devil. And that's what this case is all about.
“We are going to respect the laws of the United States in order to go after the devil because if we don't respect the Fifth Amendment, then when we finally bring this to trial, if the Constitution doesn't mean anything then, then it doesn't mean anything now.”
When contacted by email, FINRA officials said they were unable to comment on Ashley’s case and the pending complaint against him. The complaint did not specify a deadline for Ashley to respond, and no further disciplinary action had been taken as of Wednesday night.
At the time of publication, Ryne Sandel, an attorney representing Ashley, said a Financial Planning request for comment was under consideration.
