The allegations read: Burford was named a respondent in a finra complaint alleging that he executed unauthorized trades in a customer's account after the customer's death. The complaint alleges that burford failed to timely inform his member firm that the customer, a first cousin of his wife, had passed away. Burford knew that the firm's procedures required that he inform the firm of the customer's death and treat the customer's accounts as frozen until legal matters involving the accounts were determined. Instead of following the firm's procedures, burford accepted instructions to effectuate transactions in one of the customer's accounts from the customer's widow. The customer's widow, however, did not have any authority to direct activity in that account after the customer's death, and the account was a non-discretionary account. Nevertheless, at the customer's widow's direction, burford executed securities sales totaling $129,972.03 in the customer's account and facilitated automated clearing house (ach) disbursements to the customer's widow from the customer's account totaling $84,669.87.
