A Norwalk investment adviser agreed to a seven-year industry ban over years of alleged compliance failures and misleading disclosures, as questions remain about whether he continued soliciting clients after state regulators moved to shut him down.
A Norwalk investment adviser agreed to a seven-year industry ban over years of alleged compliance failures and misleading disclosures, as questions remain about whether he continued soliciting clients after state regulators moved to shut him down.
Banking Commissioner Jorge Perez on March 18 revoked the registrations of John F. Davenport and his firm, J. Davenport Advisors LLC, and barred Davenport from any role requiring a securities license in the state through March 18, 2033.
Davenport neither admitted nor denied the findings and waived a scheduled hearing.
The order follows a cease-and-desist action in January accusing Davenport of violating the Connecticut Uniform Securities Act, including inaccurate recordkeeping, misstatements about client fees, advisory work without written contracts and misleading regulators. Officials described a “systemic culture of noncompliance.”
Yet, after regulators issued that cease-and-desist, Davenport appears to have kept marketing his services.
On March 9 — roughly six weeks after the order was issued and nine days before the formal revocation — an email sent under Davenport’s name promoted an upcoming financial-planning webinar. The message described J. Davenport Advisors as a “Connecticut-registered investment adviser,” a characterization that was no longer accurate since the firm’s registration had lapsed on Dec. 31, 2025.
Whether hosting the webinar amounted to a violation of the cease-and-desist order remains an open question. The state Department of Banking declined to comment.
Among the findings in the revocation order: Davenport in 2022 hired a paralegal previously convicted of running a Ponzi scheme in Connecticut. The person, identified as “Individual A,” had pleaded guilty to federal securities fraud, served 42 months in prison and was barred by the Securities and Exchange Commission from the advisory industry.
Regulators also cited weak safeguards at Davenport’s Norwalk office, where his law and advisory practices shared space. A 2025 examination by the Department of Banking found unlocked cabinets with client files and visible notes containing login credentials.
Investigators said Davenport misrepresented subadviser fees to at least four clients, overstating the rate by five basis points. He acknowledged the discrepancy during sworn testimony in 2024 but couldn’t explain it.
The order also details disclosure failures. Davenport reported an IRS tax lien of about $949,000; records show the lien totaled roughly $1.83 million and remains outstanding in Financial Industry Regulatory Authority filings. Regulators said he also failed to disclose repeated administrative suspensions of his Connecticut law license.
He amended the tax disclosure only after being pressed by investigators.
During testimony, Davenport said he didn’t understand how to file amendments and hadn’t read his firm’s compliance policies.
The case builds on prior sanctions. FINRA in 2019 suspended Davenport for two months and fined him $20,000 for improperly sharing commissions and disguising roughly $50,000 in payments. In 2021, Connecticut insurance regulators fined him $10,000 and placed him on probation after finding he and employees impersonated clients on calls to an insurer.
J. Davenport Advisors was registered from October 2023 through Dec. 31, 2025. Davenport has been registered in Connecticut since 2007 and admitted to the state bar since 1994.
