A former Deloitte LLP executive will be suspended from practicing as an accountant for two years after settling U.S. regulatory claims that he took thousands of dollars in markers while serving as an adviser on the firm’s audit of a casino gaming corporation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission action against James T. Adams was announced by the agency in a statement today outlining settlement of its administative case. Adams, who was Deloitte’s chief risk officer, was accused of drawing markers — which are used by a casino customer to receive gaming chips drawn against the customer’s line of credit — from July 2009 until he retired from the firm in May 2010, the SEC said.

“The transactions by which Adams accepted the casino markers were loans from an audit client that are prohibited by the auditor independence rules,” Scott W. Friestad, associate director in the SEC’s enforcement unit, said in the statement. “Through his extensive use of casino markers, Adams clearly violated the rules and put his own desires ahead of his client’s interests.”

Adams concealed his casino markers from Deloitte and lied to another partner when asked if he had markers from audit clients, the SEC said.

Scott Schreiber, an attorney for Adams at Arnold & Porter LLP in Washington, declined to comment on the settlement.

Replies: