An ex-girlfriend of a deceased Santa Rosa, California Merrill Lynch broker has opened a second front in the legal battle she is waging against the wirehouse.
In May 2021, the ex-girlfriend and one-time fiancée Laura Burns had alleged in a pending complaint filed with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority that Merrill negligently supervised Wayne Rowlands, who had logged 35 years in the industry prior to his 2020 death, and allowed him to bilk her out of $336,450.
In a new complaint filed last week in a federal court in California, Burns says that Merrill erroneously and fraudulently issued an Internal Revenue Service 1099 form for 2021 that showed her obligated to pay taxes on $1,397,294. That represents the lump sum the wirehouse owed to Rowlands under his employment agreement upon his death, she alleged.
But the 1099 was erroneous since she never was married to Rowlands and never received the money, according to Burns’ complaint. She also said the firm had not paid any death benefit because it was canceled out by a $1.6 million promissory note balance that came due upon Rowlands’ death.
“Unfortunately, Merrill Lynch’s false 1099 appears to be retaliatory for Ms. Burns seeking to arbitrate claims against Merrill Lynch,” Burns’ lawyer, Tory Griffin of Auburn, California’s Reynold Tilbury & Woodward, writes in her complaint filed May 3 in federal court.
Griffin said in an interview that he had to resort to the lawsuit because he was unable to reach anyone at...
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