The man at the center of Broadway’s biggest scandal in years was already under investigation for allegations of professional misconduct as a stockbroker when he allegedly duped the producers of “Rebecca: The Musical” into believing he’d secured millions of dollars in financing for the production, according to securities regulators. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, a nonprofit organization that regulates stockbrokers, began investigating Long Island stockbroker Mark Hotton in 2009 after a customer complaint, said Nancy Condon, a spokeswoman for the organization. It was among 12 complaints and arbitration cases Mr. Hotton, 46 years old, faced in the four years before he was arrested last Monday on charges of money-laundering and fraud in connection with the “Rebecca” case and an alleged Long Island scam. The number of Finra complaints against Mr. Hotton was unusually high, the group said. According to a 2012 analysis by Finra, 0.03% of the 636,370 stockbrokers registered with the nonprofit have faced five complaints in the past five years. Read Wall Street Journal report here.
