Former Irvine Stockbroker Signs Consent Agreement : Securities: An SEC suit alleged that Aurelio Martinez participated in an illegal kickback scheme.

An Irvine man who worked as a stockbroker in Orange County until late 1989 signed a consent agreement Tuesday in a civil fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The SEC alleged in a civil suit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that Aurelio Martinez, who worked at a Prudential Securities brokerage in Anaheim and later at a PaineWebber office in Newport Beach, participated in an illegal kickback scheme from March, 1986, through July, 1989, with Thomas Anthony Piteo, then the senior vice president of a Los Angeles investment firm, Sun-America Inc.

A SunAmerica spokeswoman said Piteo is no longer listed on the company’s personnel roster. Martinez is unemployed, an SEC official said.

The SEC suit alleged that Piteo arranged to steer more than $700 million in SunAmerica securities transactions to Martinez, who received nearly $1 million in commissions from the transactions and kicked back half of the money to Piteo, a Palos Verdes resident.

Simultaneous with the filing of the case, both men signed consent agreements--a civil version of “no contest” plea in which they neither admitted nor denied guilt but agreed to avoid future violations of securities trading regulations.

Piteo also agreed to give the SEC $159,155 as partial repayment of the money he allegedly received in the scheme.

Though Martinez was not fined, an SEC official said that in such cases an administrative hearing generally is held to consider revoking the broker’s license.