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In the latest but perhaps not the last development in its investigation into a trading scandal at the former Baltimore investment firm Ferris Baker Watts, the Securities and Exchange Commission has fined a senior executive $75,000 for failing to respond to red flags indicating that a broker under his supervision was involved in a stock manipulation scheme.

The SEC ordered Louis J. Akers, who was Ferris’ vice chairman, to hand over another $19,187 in improper gains and $5,973 in interest, and prohibited him from acting as a supervisor to brokers, dealers or investment advisers for a year. Akers has the right to reapply to be a supervisor after the year, according to the settlement order filed Friday. Akers’ improper gains represent his bonus compensation attributable to the unauthorized trades, according to SEC officials.

Tim Warren, an associate regional director of SEC’s Chicago office, which is handling the case, said Wednesday that the agency’s investigation continues.

Despite being warned numerous times over three years that one of their employees was manipulating stock prices and trading money from the accounts of unwary customers, Akers and other Ferris senior executives didn’t rein in the illegal scheme, the SEC said.

Ferris was acquired last year by RBC Wealth Management, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Canada, for $230 million. Akers left Ferris before it was purchased by RBC, an RBC spokeswoman said.

Messages left for Akers and his lawyer were not returned Wednesday. As part of an earlier settlement, the SEC fined Ferris $500,000. Patrick J. Vaughan, who was Ferris’ director of retail sales, was fined $50,000, ordered to give up improper profits and banned from acting as a supervisor to brokers, dealers or investment advisers for six months. Broker Stephen Glantz, who helped one of his clients carry out the scheme at the firm’s office in Cleveland and perpetuated it after being moved to Baltimore, is in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges. So is former Ferris client David A. Dadante. Glantz used his Ferris trading operations to prop up Dadante’s Ponzi scheme, which cost Dadante’s clients about $28 million. The scheme collapsed in late 2005, and Ferris previously paid $7.2 million to about 100 investors to settle lawsuits. Within four months of his hiring in January 2003, Ferris compliance officers noticed an odd pattern of trades from Glantz, particularly in shares of a Georgia e-commerce company called Innotrac Corp. that seem designed to manipulate the company’s stock price. But Ferris executives, including Akers and Vaughan, didn’t do anything, according to SEC documents. At one point, Glantz accumulated more than $18 million in trades made on margin, or with money borrowed from the firm, posing a “significant credit risk” for Ferris. But company executives continued to let him trade with little supervision. In December 2004, after Glantz was caught buying Innotrac shares for his customers without their knowledge, a senior executive wrote a memo calling for his termination. After meeting with Akers and Vaughan, the official retracted his recommendation and agreed with Akers to place Glantz under special supervision, according to SEC documents. As Glantz’s special supervisor, Akers did not fulfill his responsibilities, including contacting Glantz’s clients, monitoring Glantz’s daily client contact log and requiring Glantz to diversify his clients’ holdings, according to the SEC. Glantz continued to make questionable trades in his customers’ accounts. “Akers did not discover Glantz’s continuing fraud, because he was not reasonably performing his duties as Glantz’s supervisor,” the SEC wrote. Had Akers done so, “he would have been able to detect and prevent Glantz’s unsuitable, unauthorized and manipulative trading.”