Year in Review: 3. Cavner barred from securities industry

SPRINGFIELD, MAY 30—The financial career of prominent Springfield adviser Nadia Cavner’s career came to end this spring.

On May 30, Cavner was permanently barred from acting as a broker or selling securities, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

The trouble began a year earlier. On April 15, 2013, Cavner pleaded guilty in federal court to a felony interstate stalking charge in Memphis, Tenn., acknowledging intentions to injure, harass or intimidate her college-age daughter’s ex-boyfriend Patrick McFarland. Two weeks later, Tupelo, Miss.-based BancorpSouth severed ties with the financial adviser who managed some $490 million for roughly 1,100 household clients.

On April, 26, 2013, Cavner announced she would start her own firm, dubbed Nadia Cavner Group. In August of that same year, she was sentenced to five years of probation and six months of home detention.

By October 2013, Cavner was facing an 85-page civil suit from McFarland and his girlfriend, Kristen Stancher, who claimed they received harassing communications that included demeaning, slanderous and defamatory material from unknown sources acting on behalf of Cavner. Still ongoing, McFarland and Stancher are seeking at least $500,000 from Cavner and other parties, according to their court filing.

On Jan. 14, Cavner sold her newly minted securities firm to Overland Park, Kan.-based Lawing Financial Inc., for undisclosed terms and officially forfeited her ability to professionally manage her firm’s investments as part of the sale.

According to Cavner’s broker profile at FINRA.org, the former adviser failed to request the termination of her suspension after receiving notice in letters dated Feb. 27 and March 24. Because she failed to respond within three months of FINRA’s intent to suspend, she was automatically barred.

Cavner had 21 years of experience in the securities industry and was registered as an independent contractor/broker with Cambridge Investment Research Inc. the past eight years.