Matthew Conway Ledvina

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Matthew Conway Ledvina, admitted in 2007 and a non-practising solicitor living/working abroad, pleaded guilty in 2019 in Massachusetts, USA to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud (a 'pump and dump' scheme using nominee entities). He was sentenced to 30 months' probation, fined $50,000, and ordered jointly to pay restitution of $1,908,583.26. The SRA brought proceedings; he did not attend but submitted written representations denying misconduct and dishonesty and challenging reliance on the US conviction. The Tribunal proceeded in his absence, treated the US conviction as conclusive proof of underlying facts, and found all allegations proved including dishonesty (applying Ivey). He was struck off and ordered to pay £3,675 costs.

Duties found breached:

• Integrity
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report
• Uphold public trust in the profession

Aggravating factors:

• Dishonesty
• Conviction for a serious offence (conspiracy to commit securities fraud)
• Serious harm to individual investors who lost substantial sums
• Very high damage to reputation of the profession internationally and domestically
• Knowing and full culpability as part of the conspiracy