CFTC v. Regal Assets LLC, Tyler G. Gallagher and Leah Donoso (2023)

Judgment entered

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In September 2023 the CFTC and California regulators charged Regal Assets LLC, Tyler G. Gallagher and Leah Donoso. On October 15, 2024 the court entered default judgments requiring over $21.9 million in restitution and over $27.3 million in penalties, according to the CFTC.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$27.3m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$27.3m

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced this matter on September 28, 2023 as release 8791-23. The CFTC and California regulators allege that a precious metals dealer, its owner and former president misappropriated more than $21 million from over 120 customers, mostly retirement account funds, using forged documents; Ponzi-like payments to older customers are one clause among the uses of funds.

This library does not tag the matter as a Ponzi scheme: on a source check, the document mentions Ponzi-like payments only in passing, or as part of another party's scheme, and the charges are about something else. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

On October 25, 2024 the CFTC announced that Judge Fernando M. Olguin of the Central District of California had issued default judgment orders on October 15 against Regal Assets, Gallagher and Donoso. According to the release, the defendants must pay, jointly and severally, over $21.9 million in restitution and over $27.3 million in civil monetary penalties, and are permanently enjoined and banned from registering with the CFTC and trading in CFTC-regulated markets. The CFTC says the orders resolve its suit against all three defendants.

These were default judgments, so the allegations were not contested at trial. The release gives the penalty only as 'over $27.3 million'; the figure stored here is that rounded number, and the restitution figure is not stored in a separate field.

Timeline

1. 2023-09-28 CFTC release published
2. 2024-10-15 Default judgment orders entered; announced by the CFTC on October 25, 2024

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• CFTC release
• CFTC order or complaint
• CFTC press release on default judgment orders

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.