CFTC v. William S. Evans III (ponzi schemes, 2022)

Judgment entered

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In January 2022 the CFTC announced a Kentucky federal court consent order requiring William Evans III to pay $16,934,773.40 in restitution and, jointly with his wife, to disgorge $10,040,418.44 for misappropriating futures-trading funds.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$10m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$10m

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 order finds that from about 2018 Evans took at least $10.6 million from participants, said he would trade futures, and instead used it personally and to pay participants in a Ponzi-like scheme, while misstating his fees and the risks.

The headline says "$17 million", which is restitution. The order imposes no civil monetary penalty, and the record had entered $17 million as one; the disgorgement it left blank is $10,040,418.44.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the order or release describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Ponzi schemes — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2022-01-19 CFTC release published

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

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 20, 2026. submit a correction.