SAN ANTONIO — A San Antonio investment advisor with offices in four other cities faces prison time after she allegedly pocketed $500,000 from a couple who sought to invest in a Texas company.
Brooklynn Chandler Willy, 45, was arrested Tuesday following a grand jury indictment charging her with aggravated identity theft, obstruction of an official proceeding and false statements, the Department of Justice says. The charges stem from a yearlong investigation by the FBI and IRS into potential investor fraud activity centering on Willy's business relationship with a Texas couple.
The indictment alleges she recommended that the couple invest $500,000 into a Lubbock company through her business, with a maturity date of April 2026. She provided "several documents" that made it appear she was handling that investment on the couple's behalf, records say, but the money "was never sent" to the company or any others controlled by its owners.
Instead, records claim, Willy used the money for her own personal and business purposes, including credit card payments and payments to other investors.
Willy was issued a grand jury subpoena in August and provided documents that appeared to have her clients' signatures. But that document, along with a promissory note, was allegedly fake. The indictment says she continued to lie about the records when interviewed by federal investigators on Nov. 19 of this year.
She was indicted two weeks later.
Wearing multiple hats
Willy, a registered financial advisor with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, is not only the president and CEO of Queen B Advisors LLC – which conducts business as Texas Financial Advisory and helps clients with everything from asset management to tax prep – but also an author and host of the Texas Financial Radio Show and podcast, according to her business's website.
Texas Financial Advisory moved to its current home in Stone Oak in November 2011, and has since opened offices in New Braunfels, Boerne, Victoria and Portland, Texas. The business website cites Willy as an awardee of multiple local 40 Under 40 honors.
But she's also run into occupational trouble in the past.
In October 2019, Willy was fired from another firm, J.W. Cole Advisors, for violations "regarding participations in unapproved private securities transactions," according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). A year later, she was cited for not registering with the SEC while working at multiple firms.
"Furthermore, Respondent Willy did not conduct a reasonable level of due diligence to determine whether the alternative investments were suitable to clients prior to making her recommendations," the SEC alleged.
As a result, her SEC registration was suspended for a year, starting in October 2020. According to Texas Financial Advisory's website, that's also when she established her own registered investment advisory firm.
She's also contending with ongoing civil litigation pertaining to complaints from a former client that Willy "breached her fiduciary duty to her clients." That client is seeking $300,000, according to the SEC, but a broker said she denied the allegations.
