Dead Man Target of State Probe

A financial advisor who killed his wife and then himself Wednesday in their Newport Beach home was being investigated by the state for allegedly spending his clients’ money as if it were his own.

In documents released Friday, the Department of Corporations said it began its investigation of Aaron Miles about Oct. 18 after clients complained that he refused to let them withdraw money that they had invested with him.

Miles’ business further deteriorated in late November when he bounced a check for more than $300,000 to an investor, investigators alleged.

Miles told the investor, unnamed in the documents, to meet him at a bank Dec. 1 for repayment, but failed to show. Eight days later, Miles, 37, shot his wife, Uyen Tran, 35, and himself. No note was found.

The Department of Corporations issued an order Friday freezing Miles’ funds, and will send examiners to his Los Angeles office on Monday to look at his records, said Debbie O’Donoghue, a department spokeswoman. Newport Beach police also are investigating Miles’ finances.

O’Donoghue said state investigators do not know how much money was siphoned from clients’ funds or how many investors there were. But the department alleged Miles commingled client and personal money, failed to keep proper records and ran his business in a way that was hazardous to investors.

Miles had been licensed with the state as an investment advisor since October 2001.

Those familiar with Miles and his business said he bought and sold stocks aggressively.

His father, George Miles, said his wife, Doris, last talked to their son just before Thanksgiving, when he told them he was not coming to visit them at their Barksdale, Texas, home for the holidays.

Their son kept many things secret -- even his 2-month marriage to Tran. The father said he and his wife had been planning to come to California for a February wedding.

Didier Sornette, a UCLA professor of geophysics who helped Miles devise his stock market strategy, said the investment advisor visited him on the French Riviera in September. Miles stayed in a five-star hotel and never mentioned a girlfriend, let alone a wife, Sornette said.

Miles took a roundabout trip to the investment world. He grew up with little money on an 8,000-acre ranch in the Texas hill country, where his father was the foreman. After high school, the Eagle Scout enlisted in the Navy. He spent five years in the Marines, rising to captain.

After Miles left the Marines in 1998, he gained a stockbroker license and went to work for Gary Sherwold, who runs a Lake Forest financial advisory firm.

Sherwold said Miles had only one client -- a service buddy -- and spent most of his time trading options in his own account.

Account statements show that Miles gained more than $7,000 from April to May 1998, but lost all that money and more by August, Sherwold said.

Sherwold said he told Miles he wasn’t comfortable with his aggressive moves. Sherwold said that when Miles refused to stop trading options, he fired him after just five months.

Miles’ financial reverses continued, and in June 1999, Miles filed for bankruptcy protection, listing less than $50,000 in assets and debts of $100,000 to $500,000.

It’s unclear how many clients lost money in Miles’ bankruptcy, though his father said Miles repaid them all, with interest.