A regional director for the securities industry’s self-regulatory agency resigned several weeks after the organization received a letter revealing the official had pleaded guilty two decades ago to charitable bingo fraud. The letter, which was reviewed by Reuters, was sent on May 21 by former securities broker David Evansen to Richard Ketchum, the chief executive officer of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and Susan Axelrod, FINRA’s executive vice president of regulatory operations. The four-page letter said Mitchell C. Atkins, who up until this week was a regional director and head of FINRA’s District 7, which is based in Boca Raton, Florida, was indicted in 1993 in Louisiana “for felony theft and charitable bingo fraud.” More on Reuters here.
