Fraudster given house arrest for breaching lifetime ban on trading

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Breaching his lifetime ban on trading has landed a conman who once fled to Mexico to avoid prosecution a conditional sentence and house arrest.

And while Kenneth Charles Fowler’s previous prosecution was for fraud under the Alberta Securities Act, his latest brush with the law has landed him a criminal record.

Fowler, 74, pleaded guilty to a single Criminal Code charge of breaching a court order for taking more than US$90,000 from Calgary investors while prohibited from trading.

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Justice John Bascom accepted a joint submission from Crown prosecutor Greg Whiteside and defence counsel Shamsher Kothari for a 12-month conditional sentence to be served in the community with the first three months under house arrest.

Fowler will also be subject to a nightly curfew for the second three months of his term and must pay back $50,000 to his only investor who didn’t have their money returned.

Whiteside told Bascom the other investors in Fowler’s Finkle Street Trading Company received their investments back, but no returns.

Reading from a statement of agreed facts, he told the Calgary Court of Justice hearing that Fowler was permanently prohibited from certain investment activities as a consequence of his 2017 conviction under the Securities Act on three charges, including fraud, involving a $12.5-million scam.

He was sentenced to the equivalent of three years behind bars at that time and then-provincial court Judge Mike Dinkel slapped him with a prohibition order.

Whiteside said in August 2020, the Alberta Securities Commission received a complaint from an individual that a person using the name Ken Davidson had convinced him to invest in a day trading business called Finkel Street Trading Company.

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The investor later learned through mutual friends that Davidson was, in fact, Fowler, Whiteside said.

“Upon being discovered, Mr. Fowler admitted to his true identity and apologized,” the prosecutor said.

The investor said he met Fowler through a social book club and other members of the group confirmed “Davidson” had pitched his investment scheme to them, although none put up any cash.

On Aug. 17, 2022, a search warrant was executed at Fowler’s residence and his electronic devices were seized.

“Mr. Fowler was ‘live trading’ in his computer when the search warrant was executed,” Whiteside told Bascom.

He said several thousand documents were obtained on Fowler’s devices and ASC investigators were able to identify eight other investors.

“No investor has received any of the profits that Fowler claimed had been made as a result of his day trading activities,” Whiteside said.

After he was initially charged under the Securities Act in January 2014, Fowler fled to Mexico before being extradited back to Canada in January 2016.

At his subsequent sentencing, Fowler admitted bilking dozens of investors, some out of their life savings.

KMartin@postmedia.com

X: @KMartinCourts

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