Gerald Rome, 66, will retire as state securities commissioner at the end of November, ending a nearly two-decade run investigating and prosecuting financial crimes in the state, according to an announcement Monday from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Affairs.
Rome aggressively pursued cases after taking over the top spot at the Colorado Division of Securities in June 2014. He won restitution orders in excess of $20 million and had two dozen enforcement actions that resulted in criminal convictions with a combined 159 years in sentences, according to DORA counts.
That doesn’t include pending cases. Last week, Rome announced he had ordered 18 cryptocurrency providers to cease their initial coin offerings and register them as securities, a move designed to protect investors in the state.
During his tenure, he also implemented stronger protections against elder fraud and crafted rules on crowdfunding. He was legal counsel for the division from 1999 to 2004, when he became deputy commissioner under Fred Joseph.
“I have been very fortunate to work on behalf of retail investors here in Colorado, a dream job for me, on diverse and challenging enforcement cases, and with a robust and efficient examination program,” Rome said in a statement.
Rome was not without critics, including those who argued he blocked legitimate efforts to raise private equity. Wayne Dolcefino of Dolcefino Consulting in Houston has gone after Rome for collecting only a small amount on the judgments the division has won, leaving defrauded investors with only paper victories.
But Marguerite Salazar, executive director of DORA, lauded Rome’s “steadfast pursuit of justice for victims of fraud” and said he never wavered in his mission to protect Coloradans. He also was respected nationally.
“Jerry did great work in Colorado and for our organization, and we will miss his knowledgeable counsel,” said Mike Pieciak, president of the North American Securities Administrators Association, in a statement.
DORA’s deputy director, Chris Myklebust, will replace Rome as the new securities commissioner on Dec. 3. Myklebust formerly headed the Division of Financial Services and the Division of Banking, where he was best known for trying to implement a workaround for marijuana businesses in the state blocked from the banking system under federal rules.
He briefly left state employment in late November 2017 until May of this year, when Salazar appointed him as her deputy at DORA.