Market Manipulation. Search

SEC v. Arcturus Corporation, et al. (unregistered distributions, 2016)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In March 2016 a Texas federal court granted the SEC summary judgment on all claims against oil and gas promoters, finding fraud by Parvizian and his companies and Section 5 violations by all defendants.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency SEC
Release number LR-23497
Date filed 2016-03-24
Status judgment
Criminal parallel No
Defendants Arcturus Corporation (entity) ; Aschere Energy, LLC (entity) ; Leon Ali Parvizian (individual) ; Alfredo Gonzalez (individual) ; AMG Energy, LLC (entity) ; Robert Balunas (individual) ; R. Thomas & Co. LLC (entity)
Also named elsewhere AMG Energy, LLC is named in 1 other matter ; Arcturus Corporation is named in 1 other matter ; Aschere Energy, LLC is named in 1 other matter ; R. Thomas & Co. LLC is named in 1 other matter
Cited as charged or alleged Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.15(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques Unregistered distributions

What was ordered

Civil penalty
—
Disgorgement
—
Prejudgment interest
—
Total relief
—
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

On March 24, 2016 the SEC announced that the Northern District of Texas had granted it summary judgment on March 22 against Leon Ali Parvizian, Arcturus Corporation, Aschere Energy, LLC, Alfredo Gonzalez, AMG Energy, LLC, Robert Balunas and R. Thomas & Co. LLC. The SEC charged in December 2013 that they raised nearly $22 million from at least 380 investors. The court found fraud by Parvizian and his companies, found that all defendants violated Securities Act Sections 5(a) and 5(c), and found that Parvizian, Gonzalez, AMG Energy, Balunas and R. Thomas acted as unregistered broker-dealers. The record previously showed the status as unknown and one name, 'Arcturus Corporation, et al.'.

This library tags the matter as unregistered distributions, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

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.

Timeline

  1. 2016-03-24 Litigation 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.

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.

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

Action Agency Filed Technique Penalty Status
SEC v. Zachary Miller (unregistered distributions, 2026) SEC 2026-03-05 Unregistered Distributions — settled
SEC v. David Hudzik (unregistered distributions, 2025) SEC 2025-12-23 Unregistered Distributions $70k judgment
SEC v. Ongkaruck Sripetch and others (pump and dump, 2025) SEC 2025-06-20 Pump And Dump , Unregistered Distributions $204k judgment
SEC v. Peter Scalise III and The3rdBevco Inc. (unregistered distributions, 2025) SEC 2025-06-17 Unregistered Distributions $236k settled
SEC v. Investview, Inc. (unregistered distributions, 2025) SEC 2025-01-17 Unregistered Distributions $375k settled
SEC v. Tai Mo Shan Limited (unregistered distributions, 2024) SEC 2024-12-20 Unregistered Distributions $36.7m settled

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.