The broker whose license was revoked after he bribed the Arkansas treasurer has promised to pay his related $20,000 fine within a year to avoid possible court sanctions.
Steele Vincent Stephens, 53, not only bribed Martha Shoffner, he then turned FBI informant, secretly recorded her taking money and testified against the Newport Democrat at her trial last year.
Stephens made his first payment on his fine, $5,000, on Friday, the same day the 71-year-old Shoffner was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for bribery and extortion.
Stephens had paid her $42,000 in seven $6,000 payments, the last of which was arranged by the FBI and led to her arrest in 2013.
Shoffner's sentence requires that she pay $31,980 for the bribes she accepted minus the amount the FBI recovered after her arrest.
Stephens got immunity from federal prosecutors for his cooperation, but the state Securities Department fined him $20,000 and stripped him of his license after an April hearing.
In a court filing released Monday, Stephens promised to repay the remaining $15,000 on his fine in four quarterly installments of $3,750 before Sept. 1, 2016.
He had been ordered this spring to pay the fine in two weeks, but the securities regulators sued him in July, complaining that he had "failed and refused" to pay.
Stephens responded to the lawsuit last month by arguing he could not afford to pay.
The sides reached a settlement last week that requires him to accept the penalty and pay it by installment or regulators will take further collection action against him, according to the court filing.
Stephens earned $2.5 million in commissions in the 85 trades he conducted on behalf of the treasury between July 2009 and December 2012.
Seven of those trades, between January 2011 and October 2011 and which earned Stephens $121,979 in commissions, were the focus of the Securities Department inquiry that resulted in his fine and license loss. His license had been suspended in June 2013.
Stephens was cleared of two accusations of wrongdoing, but agency regulators found that Stephens had violated two securities laws by failing to disclose the amount of commission on a proposed sale before a bond matured and for $36,000 in secret cash payments he made to Shoffner that were disclosed at her trial.
Metro on 09/04/2015