United States of America v. Keith Wakefield

Chicago, Illinois, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with fraud.

Reported by: Kent Morlan

Keith Wakefield, age 52, of Chicago, worked as the head of fixed income trading for IFS Securities, Inc., a broker-dealer in Chicago. In 2019, Wakefield knowingly and fraudulently engaged in unauthorized speculative trading in U.S. Treasury bonds using his employer’s trading accounts, exposing his trading to approximately $250 million in losses and actually causing more than $30 million in losses to the employer and its counterparties. Wakefield attempted to conceal the unauthorized trades and losses by entering fake off-setting trades into a clearing broker’s order system, creating the false impression that he had profitably traded through a different clearing broker.

In addition to the fraudulent trading scheme, Wakefield from 2017 to 2019 embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from IFS Securities by falsifying the company’s books and records to create fake commissions that Wakefield knew were not actually owed to him.

The defendant was found guilty on count(s) 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s after a plea of not guilty. The defendant is hereby committed to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to be imprisoned for a total term of: 200 months as to count 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s. Terms to run concurrently. No term of supervised release imposed. The defendant shall surrender to the United States Marshal for this district: by 3:00 p.m. on September 11, 2026. Criminal Monetary Penalties. Schedule of Payments.