Two Downington, Pa., financial service professionals were fined and suspended by FINRA for skirting their member firm’s rules for handling certain variable annuities.

Michael Thomas DiPuppo, a registered supervisor, was fined $15,000 and suspended from associating with any FINRA members for 90 days, ending April, 3, while Robert Michael DiPuppo, a registered representative, was fined $10,000 and suspended for 30 days, ending Feb. 2, according to FINRA records. Their relationship was not clear from the records.

The men were found by FINRA investigators to have disagreed with their member firm’s policy specifying that variable annuity transactions that exceeded 50% of the lower end of the customer’s net-worth bracket required additional supervisory review regarding potential liquidity issues, records show.

To circumvent the system, they altered the net worth of customers to a higher bracket to avoid the 50% threshold that would have flagged them on a report, necessitating additional review, investigators said. By altering the information, the DiPuppos caused their firm’s books and records to be false.

Michael Dipuppo also was found to have not exercised his supervisory responsibilities to ensure that new account forms and annuity applications that Robert DiPuppo and other registered representatives in his branch submitted were accurate.

The men neither admitted nor denied the FINRA findings.