John C Howley

A summary of what happened?

John C. Howley: Summary of Allegations and Professional Controversies

Background and Professional History

John C. Howley, also known as Jack Howley, is a former financial advisor from Rumson, New Jersey, whose career in financial services has been marked by serious allegations and regulatory actions. He was associated with Park Avenue Securities LLC, where he provided financial planning and investment advisory services to clients.

Key Allegations and Complaints

1. Undisclosed Private Securities Transactions:
   Howley was terminated from Park Avenue Securities in 2018 for failing to disclose private securities transactions and referring clients to investments that were not offered by his firm. This practice, known as “selling away,” breaches industry rules requiring advisors to conduct all securities transactions through their affiliated firms. Such unauthorized transactions raise concerns over transparency and investor protection.
2. Involvement in a Ponzi Scheme:
   Howley became involved in recommending investments in Global Credit Recovery (GCR), later identified as a Ponzi scheme by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He personally invested a substantial sum in GCR and facilitated similar investments for his clients. When the scheme unraveled, it resulted in significant financial losses, affecting numerous investors who had trusted Howley’s guidance.
3. Customer Complaints and Lawsuits:
   Following the collapse of GCR, Howley faced multiple complaints from clients alleging that he had acted negligently and recommended unsuitable investments. These complaints, seeking millions in damages, have led to legal actions and settlements. His clients claimed that Howley’s recommendations exposed them to undue risk and that he had failed to perform adequate due diligence.
4. Regulatory Sanctions and Bar from the Industry:
   In 2019, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) permanently barred Howley from associating with any FINRA member firm. This decision followed his refusal to provide testimony during an investigation into his involvement with GCR and related practices, leading FINRA to conclude that he could no longer participate in the securities industry in any capacity.

The allegations against John C. Howley reflect a series of serious professional misconduct issues, including undisclosed transactions and involvement in an investment scheme that harmed numerous clients. These actions have led to substantial financial losses, regulatory sanctions, and ultimately, his permanent removal from the securities industry. His case serves as a stark reminder of the importance of transparency and due diligence in financial advisory services, highlighting the risks faced by investors when advisors fail to adhere to industry standards and regulations.

Analyzing the Fake Copyright Notice(s)

Our team collects and analyses fraudulent copyright takedown requests, legal complaints, and other efforts to remove critical information from the internet. Through our investigative reporting, we examine the prevalence and operation of an organized censorship industry, predominantly funded by criminal entities, oligarchs, and disreputable businesses or individuals. Our findings allow internet users to gain insight into these censorship schemes’ sources, methods, and underlying objectives.

What was John C Howley trying to hide?

John C Howley‘s attempts to hide unfavourable content through the misuse of copyright notices while allegedly engaging in perjury present serious legal concerns. These actions suggest a calculated attempt to manipulate legal systems to suppress free speech, a fundamental violation of copyright law principles and an abuse of legal processes. The use of such tactics not only undermines the integrity of copyright protection but also potentially constitutes perjury, further entangling John C Howley in legal accountability. Let’s examine the information John C Howley may be trying to remove from the internet –

Investigative Report: The Controversial Financial Career of John C. Howley

Introduction

John C. Howley, also known as Jack Howley, rose to prominence as a distinct figure in financial advising, especially within New Jersey’s affluent communities. However, a series of allegations and legal actions have tarnished his reputation, leading to regulatory sanctions and a permanent ban from the securities industry. Howley’s career was marred by accusations of unauthorized financial dealings, association with a Ponzi scheme, and significant financial losses for clients who trusted his expertise. This report delves into the details of the controversies, lawsuits, and regulatory actions that have defined Howley’s career.

Professional Background and Role in Financial Services

John C. Howley was associated with Park Avenue Securities LLC, a reputable broker-dealer where he offered financial advisory services. Howley’s primary role was to help clients manage and grow their investments by providing strategic guidance and recommending investment products. For years, he managed a client base in Rumson, New Jersey, building trust with high-net-worth individuals and families who valued his financial insights. However, beneath this professional image, Howley was allegedly engaged in practices that went against industry regulations, ultimately harming his clients.

Key Allegations and Adverse Findings

1. Undisclosed Private Securities Transactions (“Selling Away”)One of the primary allegations against Howley involves “selling away,” an industry term describing the act of a financial advisor selling investments or securities outside the purview of their affiliated firm. In Howley’s case, he allegedly recommended and arranged investments in private securities without disclosing these transactions to Park Avenue Securities, his official employer. This practice is strictly prohibited, as it bypasses the oversight required to ensure that investments are suitable and compliant with regulations.

   Howley’s failure to disclose these transactions raised serious red flags about his transparency and integrity. Selling away undermines a firm’s ability to monitor advisors’ activities, exposing clients to unvetted investment opportunities. This undisclosed activity prompted Park Avenue Securities to terminate Howley’s employment in 2018, a move that set off a chain of investigations into his financial dealings.

2. Association with Global Credit Recovery (GCR) and the Ponzi Scheme AllegationsOne of the most damning allegations against Howley involves his association with Global Credit Recovery (GCR), an investment company later identified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a Ponzi scheme. Howley not only invested his own money—an estimated $1.75 million—into GCR but also encouraged his clients to invest significant sums. Ponzi schemes, by design, use funds from new investors to pay returns to earlier investors, giving the illusion of profitability until the scheme collapses.

   When the GCR scheme fell apart, Howley’s clients suffered substantial losses, leading to outrage and allegations of negligence. Clients argued that Howley had failed to conduct adequate due diligence on GCR, leaving them vulnerable to the scheme’s eventual collapse. This association with GCR became one of the central issues in the complaints against Howley, as his clients were left questioning how he could endorse such a high-risk, fraudulent investment.

3. Customer Complaints and LawsuitsFollowing the exposure of GCR’s fraudulent activities, Howley’s clients began filing formal complaints, alleging that he had acted negligently and recommended investments that were unsuitable for their financial profiles. The collective damages sought by clients totaled over $4.9 million. The complaints centered on several key issues:
   • Lack of Due Diligence: Clients claimed that Howley had failed to perform thorough research on GCR, placing them in a high-risk situation.
   • Inadequate Disclosure: Investors alleged that Howley did not fully explain the risks associated with GCR and other private securities investments.
   • Unsuitable Investment Recommendations: Howley’s clients argued that the investments he recommended were inappropriate given their individual financial situations, resulting in losses they could not afford.

   Some of these cases were settled, while others remained unresolved, illustrating the scale of discontent among his former clients. The complaints further damaged Howley’s reputation and raised questions about the accountability of financial advisors in protecting their clients’ interests.

4. FINRA Sanctions and Permanent Bar from the IndustryIn response to the mounting allegations and complaints, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) launched an investigation into Howley’s financial practices. During the course of the investigation, Howley refused to provide testimony on record, a decision that had severe consequences. FINRA interpreted his refusal as an obstruction of the investigation, which led to its decision to permanently bar him from associating with any FINRA member firm in any capacity.

   This sanction is one of the most serious measures FINRA can impose, effectively ending Howley’s career in the securities industry. A FINRA bar signifies that Howley was found to be in violation of fundamental ethical and regulatory standards, as FINRA typically reserves such actions for cases involving significant misconduct. His inability to continue working in the industry not only impacted his career but also underscored the gravity of the allegations.

Financial and Ethical Implications

Howley’s actions have raised broader concerns about the responsibilities of financial advisors to act in their clients’ best interests. The allegations against him illustrate how undisclosed transactions and poor due diligence can devastate clients’ financial well-being. Howley’s case is particularly significant because it involves high-net-worth clients, who had trusted his expertise and relied on his financial guidance.

Conclusion

John C. Howley’s career trajectory reflects a troubling story of alleged misconduct, where private securities transactions, association with a Ponzi scheme, and lack of regulatory compliance have led to far-reaching consequences. His involvement in the GCR Ponzi scheme, combined with his failure to disclose transactions, placed clients in vulnerable positions, resulting in financial losses and eroded trust. The regulatory actions and client complaints have collectively ended his financial advising career, culminating in a FINRA bar that will permanently prevent him from practicing in the securities industry.

For Howley’s former clients, his professional fall from grace serves as a reminder of the importance of due diligence, transparency, and regulatory oversight. His case emphasizes the need for clients to seek advisors who prioritize their well-being and act in accordance with industry standards, highlighting the critical role of ethical practices in maintaining trust within the financial advisory industry.

How do we counteract this malpractice?

Once we ascertain the involvement of John C Howley (or actors working on behalf of John C Howley), we will inform John C Howley of our findings via Electronic Mail.

Our preliminary assessment suggests that John C Howley may have engaged a third-party reputation management agency or expert, which, either independently or under direct authorization from John C Howley, initiated efforts to remove adverse online content, including potentially fraudulent DMCA takedown requests. We will extend an opportunity to John C Howley to provide details regarding their communications with the agency or expert, as well as the identification of the individual(s) responsible for executing these false DMCA notices.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will necessitate a reassessment of our initial assumptions. In such an event, we will be compelled to take appropriate legal action to rectify the unlawful conduct and take the following steps –

Since John C Howley made such efforts to hide something online, it seems fit to ensure that this article and sensitive information targeted online by these events get a lot more exposure and traffic than what it would have received originally

We hope this becomes an excellent case study for the Streisand effect…The key idea behind the Streisand effect is that efforts to restrict information can backfire, often causing the information to gain more attention than it would have otherwise. This effect is widespread in the digital age, where users quickly notice and spread censorship efforts on social media and other platforms. Trying to suppress something can unintentionally lead to it becoming more visible, which John C Howley is finding out the hard way.

Potential Consequences for John C Howley

Under Florida Statute 831.01, the crime of Forgery is committed when a person falsifies, alters, counterfeits, or forges a document that carries “legal efficacy” with the intent to injure or defraud another person or entity.

Forging a document is considered a white-collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document to deceive another person. It can also include passing along copies of documents that are known to be false. In many states in the US, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony.

Additionally, under most laws, “fraud on the court” is where “a party has sentiently set in motion some unconscionable scheme calculated to interfere with the judicial system’s ability impartially to adjudicate a matter by improperly influencing the trier of fact or unfairly hampering the presentation of the opposing party’s claim or defense.”  Cox v. Burke, 706 So. 2d 43, 46 (Fla. 5th DCA 1998) (quoting Aoude v. Mobil Oil Corp., 892 F.2d 1115, 1118 (1st Cir. 1989)).

Is John C Howley Committing a Cyber Crime?

Yes, it seems so. John C Howley used multiple approaches to remove unwanted material from review sites and Google’s search results. Thanks to protections allowing freedom of speech in the United States, there are very few legal ways to do this. John C Howley could not eliminate negative reviews or search results that linked to them without a valid claim of defamation, copyright infringement, or some other clear breach of the law.

Faced with these limitations, some companies like John C Howley have gone to extreme lengths to fraudulently claim copyright ownership over a negative review in the hopes of taking it down.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. John C Howley is certainly keeping interesting company here….

The DMCA takedown process requires that copyright owners submit a takedown notice to an ISP identifying the allegedly infringing content and declaring, under penalty of perjury, that they have a good faith belief that the content is infringing. The ISP must then promptly remove or disable access to the content. The alleged infringer can then submit a counter-notice, and if the copyright owner does not take legal action within 10 to 14 days, the ISP can restore the content.

Since these platforms are predominantly based in the U.S., the complaints are typically made under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which requires online service providers and platforms to react immediately to reports or violations. Big Tech companies rarely have systems in place to assess the merit of each report. Instead, all bad actors need to do is clone a story, backdate it, and then demand the real thing be taken down.

Reputation Agency's Modus Operandi

The fake DMCA notices we found always use the “back-dated article” technique. With this technique, the wrongful notice sender (or copier) creates a copy of a “true original” article and back-dates it, creating a “fake original” article (a copy of the true original) that, at first glance, appears to have been published before the true original.

Then, based on the claim that this backdated article is the “original,” the scammers send a DMCA to the relevant online service providers (e.g. Google), alleging that the ‘true’ original is the copied or “infringing” article and that the copied article is the “original,” requesting the takedown of the ‘true’ original article. After sending the DMCA request, the person who sent the wrong notice takes down the fake original URL, likely to make sure that the article doesn’t stay online in any way. If the takedown notice is successful, the disappearance from the internet of information is most likely to be legitimate speech.

As an integral part of this scheme, the ‘reputation management’ company hired by John C Howley creates a website that purports to be a ‘news’ site. This site is designed to look legitimate at a glance, but any degree of scrutiny reveals it as the charade it is.

The company copies the ‘negative’ content and posts it “on the fake ‘news’ site, attributing it to a separate author,” then gives it “a false publication date on the ‘news’ website that predated the original publication.

The reputation company then sent Google a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice claiming the original website infringed copyright. After a cursory examination of the fake news site, Google frequently accepts the notice and delists the content.

In committing numerous offences, John C Howley either premeditated actions or were unaware of the consequences. Despite hiring an agency to make Google disregard any negative information about John C Howley, ignorance does not excuse this wrongdoing.

Fake DMCA notices have targeted articles highlighting the criminal activity of prominent people to hide their illegal behavior. These people, which include US, Russian, and Khazakstani politicians as well as members from elite circles including the mafia and those with massive financial power, are all connected – and alleged corruption ranging from child abuse to sexual harassment is exposed when exploring evidence found at these URLs. It appears there’s a disturbing level of influence being exerted here that needs further investigation before justice can be served. FSMSmart is certainly keeping interesting company here.

The Reputation Laundering

Rogue Reputation agencies use spurious copyright claims and fake legal notices to remove and obscure articles linking clients to allegations of tax avoidance, corruption, and drug trafficking. Most of these reputation agencies are based offshore, mainly in Russia, India, and Eastern Europe, and they do not worry about complying with US-based laws.

The content in all of the articles for which the fraudulent DMCA notices have been sent relates to allegations of criminal allegations, including corruption, child abuse, sexual harassment, human trafficking and financial fraud against businesses and individuals with ultra-high net worth.

In addition to the misuse of the DMCA takedown process, there is a notable absence of enforcement concerning perjury violations. The statutory requirement related to perjury is designed to deter copyright holders from submitting fraudulent or knowingly false takedown requests, as they may face legal consequences for making false declarations under penalty of perjury. However, to date, there have been no known instances of any individual being prosecuted for perjury in connection with the submission of false DMCA takedown notices.

This lack of enforcement has emboldened copyright holders to exploit the DMCA takedown process to suppress dissent, criticism, or other unfavorable content, without fear of legal repercussions.

Some of the people and businesses who have employed this tactic to remove legitimate content from Google illegally include a Spanish businessman-turned-cocaine-trafficker, Organised crime, an Israeli-Argentine banker accused of laundering money for Hugo Chávez’s regime, a French “responsible” mining company accused of tax evasion, child molesters and sexual predators. John C Howley is in great company ….

What else is John C Howley hiding?

We encourage you to ‘Dork‘ Google by searching for keyword combinations such as [John C Howley] + {Negative Keyword, such as Scam, Fraud, Complaints, Lawsuit, Sanction, etc} on Google. It’s likely if you scroll down to the bottom of this Google search results, you’ll stumble upon this Legal Takedown notice (pictured below)

To make such an investigation possible, we encourage more online service providers to come forward and share copies of content removal requests with industry experts and researchers. If you have any information on John C Howley that you want to share with experts and journalists, kindly email the author directly at [email protected].

All communications are strictly confidential and safeguarded under a comprehensive Whistleblower Policy, ensuring full protection and anonymity for individuals who provide information.