SEC v. Arthur Lamar Adams and Madison Timber Properties, LLC (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 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 2018 the SEC sued Arthur Lamar Adams and Madison Timber Properties over an alleged timber Ponzi scheme in Mississippi. A November 2018 SEC release says Adams consented to a permanent injunction and was sentenced to 19.5 years in prison in the criminal case, but no final money outcome of the civil case was found, so the record stays at filed.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on August 8, 2018 as release LR-24228. The respondents named are Arthur Lamar Adams and Madison Timber Properties, LLC (1 individual, 1 entity). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Mississippi.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

An SEC litigation release of 9 November 2018 shows a partial outcome. It says that on 30 October 2018 Adams was sentenced in the parallel criminal case to 19.5 years in prison, recorded here as 234 months, and that in the SEC action he had consented to a permanent injunction, an asset freeze and expedited discovery, with a court-appointed receiver in place. The release gives no disgorgement, penalty or entry date for a civil final judgment, and does not address Madison Timber Properties as a separate defendant. We checked the SEC's litigation releases and administrative proceedings on 2026-10-04 and found no later outcome, so the status stays filed.

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. 2018-08-08 Litigation release published
2. 2018-10-30 Adams sentenced to 19.5 years in the criminal case; consents to permanent injunction in the SEC action (reported 9 November 2018)

Primary documents

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

• SEC litigation release
• SEC litigation release LR-24347 (sentence and consent injunction)

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 10, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.