Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres directed his financial adviser to dump dozens of individual stocks after the New York congressman was months late disclosing more than 70 stock purchases — in violation of a federal conflicts-of-interest and transparency law, NOTUS has learned.
Torres’ congressional office confirmed Friday that the congressman’s tardy disclosures violated the transparency provisions of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act, which requires lawmakers to disclose any individual stock, bond or cryptocurrency trade within 45 days of making it.
The congressman’s STOCK Act violation is the latest in a series of stock disclosure blunders this year by federal lawmakers and comes at a time when a bipartisan coalition in Congress is pushing to bar every elected official in the House and Senate from buying and selling individual stocks altogether.
Financial advisers Torres hired to manage his wealth made the improperly disclosed stock purchases between June 2024 and June 2025, with most coming in September 2024, according to congressional financial records filed Wednesday. Torres, who represents New York’s 15th Congressional District, located within the Bronx, was also months late disclosing several U.S. Treasury note purchases, federal records indicate.
In a statement to NOTUS, Torres spokesman Benjamin Stanislawski said the congressman himself “had no knowledge of, discretion over, or involvement in the individual stock trades executed by the third-party manager.”
Stanislawski said Torres last year transferred about $170,000 that “had been languishing in a regular bank account for many years” to a financial adviser at Janney Montgomery Scott, which later allocated the funds to an account managed on Torres’ behalf by Franklin Templeton.
Torres has now “instructed his financial adviser to ensure that no third party manager makes individual stock trades using the congressman’s personal funds any longer,” Stanislawski said. “Only investments in index funds, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) will be permitted going forward.”
Among the stocks Torres owned, then sold, on July 11 were Bank of America, Comcast, JPMorgan Chase, Facebook parent Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, U.S. Bancorp, UnitedHealth Group, Verizon and NextEra Energy. He also held stock in several defense contractors including L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman.
Torres, in his third term, is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, which has jurisdiction over banks, insurance and international finance.
Torres’ office confirmed the congressman has been in contact with the House Committee on Ethics, which primarily oversees House-related STOCK Act matters, and affirmed he’s willing to pay any fine associated with his disclosure snafu.
The standard late-filing fee for first-time STOCK Act offenders is $200.
Congress makes no legal distinction between a federal lawmaker personally executing a financial trade and a financial adviser or broker executing a trade on their behalf.
“You are personally responsible for incomplete and inaccurate information contained in your [financial reports], regardless of who assisted in preparation,” according to the House Committee on Ethics.
Torres joins at least three other Democratic congressmen — Reps. Shri Thanedar of Michigan, George Whitesides of California and Greg Landsman of Ohio — who this year said they would voluntarily quit trading individual stocks to avoid real or perceived financial conflicts of interest.
This year alone, the STOCK Act has tripped up several lawmakers, including Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin and Reps. Dan Meuser, Lisa McClain, Austin Scott, Neal Dunn, Scott Franklin, Brandon Gill and Tim Moore. Democratic Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Dwight Evans, Jamie Raskin, Chellie Pingree, Thanedar, Whitesides and Torres have also been out of compliance.