Longtime London financial adviser and insurance broker Robert (Randy) Hawken, 66, faces criminal charges and multiple civil suits after police allege he defrauded about two dozen people – mostly seniors, one the mom of a 2012 murder victim – of nearly $2 million. Dale Carruthers reports.
Jean Zak was midway through writing a book about her son Jonathan, who was killed in a 2012 shooting, when she had to stop working on it in the spring.
Detailing her only child’s life and tragic death at 29 was cathartic, but Zak became overwhelmed after finding herself embroiled in another London police investigation.
Zak, 81, is one of two dozen people who police allege were defrauded out of nearly $2 million by Robert (Randy) Hawken, a financial adviser and insurance broker who had built clientele in the London area over more than three decades.
Hawken, 66, faces criminal charges and a mounting tally of civil lawsuits from former clients, most of them seniors, who allege he knowingly defrauded them.
After retiring from TD Canada Trust, Zak invested in a guaranteed investment certificate (GIC), a fixed-term investment that pays set interest rates, through Hawken’s company, Dufferin Financial Group, in 2002, she said.
The GIC grew to about $140,000 and Zak collected annual interest payments every March and made several lump-sum withdrawals to pay for renovations and travel over the years. But this year’s GIC interest payment didn’t arrive, Zak said, and Hawken told her he was retiring.
Then London police contacted Zak to say she was a victim in a suspected fraud.
Now, Zak fears she may have lost her entire investment and says she feels betrayed by a man who was a guest at her 70th birthday party and hosted her for dinner after the loss of her son.
“I thought he was my friend. How could he do that?” Zak said. “I had to quit writing my book . . . I was overwhelmed and found it difficult to concentrate.”
Police arrested Hawken Sept. 12 and charged him with fraud over $5,000 and possessing property obtained by crime valued at more than $5,000. He’s set to make his first court appearance Oct. 22.
Bill and Donna Anderson, 78 and 85, say they started investing with Hawken in the early 2000s after being referred to him by their former financial adviser. In 2021, Hawken suggested the couple put money into a GIC yielding annual interest rates between four to five per cent. They ended up investing $90,000, the couple said.
“You got to remember, we trusted him,” Donna said.
GICs are an attractive investment for retirees because they’re a secure way to generate reliable income through interest payments, while being immune from stock market volatility. The average rate for an unregistered, five-year GIC is now 4.25 per cent, up from 0.45 per cent in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Ratehub.ca, a mortgage brokerage and financial services provider. That rate varied between 1.4 per cent and 1.55 per cent in 2021.
Hawken never paid out the promised interest to the Andersons, despite sending them monthly statements including a certificate number for the non-registered GIC, they said.
Bill, a retired car dealership accountant, was advised by a friend preparing his income tax to include the GIC interest payments on his return. He confronted Hawken, who admitted the money was never invested, the couple said.
“It was all bogus,” said Bill, who said he gave Hawken one day to repay his money, plus the interest.
Hawken said he couldn’t make a lump-sum payment, but offered to make monthly payments, promising to sell his properties or let the couple take out a mortgage on his Grand Bend cottage, the couple said.
“We said no, of course,” Donna said.
The Andersons contacted police.
Police allege 18 people were defrauded of $1.99 million by Hawken, who they contend collected money for investments never made, dating back as far as 2003. Court documents list an additional six complainants in the case.
“There may be more victims,” police spokesperson Const. Matt Dawson said by email. “We have been in contact with regulators throughout the investigation, and any further details will be available through the court process.”
Court records show Hawken faces nine separate civil lawsuits, eight of them filed by complainants in the criminal case, and some include his wife Cheryl and an incorporated company he controls, Amsaral Holdings, as defendants.
A London couple, 91 and 85, invested with Hawken for decades and never had any problem drawing on their retirement funds, according to a statement of claim in a lawsuit seeking $230,000 in investment losses and other damages.
In 2010, Hawken encouraged them to invest in a new offering, a ladder of maturity fund, which would provide guaranteed interest returns. The couple contributed $123,000 to the fund between 2010 and 2023, but none of that money was ever invested, the lawsuit alleges.
The couple never received documentation about their investment, except for a two-page report on Feb. 7, 2023, for an unregistered GIC, that had incorrect dates and incomplete investment amounts, the lawsuit alleges.
On April 4, Hawken told the couple to liquidate the “ladder fund” because he was retiring, the lawsuit alleges. Two weeks later, London police contacted the couple to say they’d been identified as victims in a potential fraud.
“The LPS (London police service) further disclosed that an assistant or staff member at Dufferin Financial Group had first reported this to them and provided (police) with a list of potential victims,” the lawsuit alleges.
Lawsuit statements of claim and statements filed in defence include allegations not yet tested in court. Hawken and his wife haven’t filed statements of defence in any of the cases.
Another London couple has launched a $178,000 lawsuit against Hawken, his wife and Amsaral, which lists Hawken as director and holds a mortgage on a home at 554 Waterloo St., where Dufferin Financial operates.
The couple had known and invested with the Hawkens for 15 years, contributing $78,000 between December 2023 and January 2024 in a GIC, the statement of claim alleges.
Hawken provided a statement of investment that included a certificate number and suggested the investment was held with Manulife Financial, the lawsuit alleges.
Hawken contacted the couple in March and said he was retiring and said their investments could be reassigned to another agent or cashed out, the lawsuit alleges.
The couple asked Hawken to withdraw their investment from the GIC, but he told them he couldn’t return their money until he had paid out “residuals,” the lawsuit alleges.
One day later, a Dufferin Financial Group employee called the couple and said the company had defrauded them and several other clients, the lawsuit alleges.
The employee had contacted London police and advised the couple to do the same, which they say they did, according to the lawsuit. They also say they contacted Manulife and were told the company had no record of their GIC investments, the lawsuit alleges.
Hawken also faces a lawsuit filed by a Masonic temple in London where he was longtime member and held the rank of worship master.
The Tuscan Lodge, a Masonic non-profit organization in London, invested $93,977 with Hawken, a member since 1991, in March after he encouraged the organization to invest its “surplus funds” with Dufferin Group Financial, according to a statement of claim.
The lodge invested $93,977.63 with Dufferin Financial Group, plus $65,700 with Manulife, the lawsuit alleges.
The Hawkens misappropriated the money invested with Dufferin Financial Group and used it to support their lifestyle, including to pay the mortgages, taxes and upkeep for two houses in London and another in Grand Bend, the lawsuit alleges.
The Tuscan Lodge is asking the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to put a certificate of pending litigation on the London properties, both listed for sale since the spring, and the Grand Bend cottage.
The certificate of pending litigation is registered on a title to a property to warn the public the property is subject to a court dispute. No dealings, including financing, mortgaging and selling, are allowed while litigation is pending. The certificate is removed after the court case is resolved.
The four-bedroom house at 558 Waterloo St. has been listed for sale since March 3. The $549,000 asking price has been slashed twice since it was first listed for $699,000.
Property records show the house is owned by Amsaral Holdings.
The three-storey house at 554 Waterloo St. is listed for $1.05 million, down from the original nearly $1.3-million March asking price.
The Tuscan Lodge and the couple who filed the $174,000 lawsuit were added as mortgage holders on both Waterloo Street properties, according to property records showing the Tuscan Lodge is owed $106,417 and the couple $92,491 – money that must be paid out to them if the house is sold.
Hawken declined comment on the criminal and civil allegations against him.
“My lawyer told me not to talk about it,” he said when reached at his Grand Bend cottage. Hawken declined to provide his lawyer’s name.
Cheryl Hawken didn’t return calls requesting comment.
Robert Hawken has owned Dufferin Financial Group and worked as financial planner since 1989, according to a LinkedIn profile removed shortly after police announced the charges against him Sept. 13. The profile also listed Hawken as a past president and district deputy grand master of the Freemasons in London.
A spokesperson for the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario said the allegations against Hawken have been referred to the Institute for Advanced Financial Education, the body responsible for disciplinary action that holds an approved credential for someone with the same name as Hawken.
A spokesperson for the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) said Hawken hasn’t been registered with the regulator since 2010. CIRO was created in 2023 through a combination of the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada and the Mutual Fund Dealers Association of Canada.
Zak, meanwhile, said she’s been consumed by worries and has had trouble sleeping since learning her GIC investment with Hawken may be gone.
“I lost my stable income and I no longer had financial security,” she said. “I feel tension, anger and hopeless now.”
The stress is compounded by the grief Zak still feels from the loss of her son Jonathan, killed by a shotgun blast when two men tried to rob him of his backpack as he cut through an east-end park on his way home after a night playing games with friends on May 31, 2012.
The case remained unsolved for five years until investigators charged two men, one of them already in prison for another fatal shooting. William McDonald was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life with no parole eligibility for 25 years, while Thomas Lako was convicted of manslaughter and given a 12-year sentence.
Asked what Zak would like to say to Hawken, she replied: “How could you do that to me when you know I lost my son?”