SEC v. Powertraderspress.com, Inc., Elite Stock Research, Inc. and others (boiler rooms, 2017)

Status unknown

✓ 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 2017, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged 13 individuals over two Long Island call-center scams that allegedly took more than $10 million from over a hundred victims, many of them seniors, through cold calls pushing penny stocks with false claims and threats.

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 July 12, 2017 as litigation release 23878. The respondents named include Powertraderspress.com, Inc., Elite Stock Research, Inc. and twelve individuals, among them Ashley Antos (the release counts 13 individuals charged), with numerous relief defendants, in a complaint filed in the Eastern District of New York. The record previously listed only Ms Antos and Antos, Inc., a relief defendant.

The SEC alleges the two scams used boiler room style call centers to place hundreds of thousands of cold calls to pressure victims, many of them seniors, into buying penny stocks, with lies such as that a large media company was buying into the issuer, harassment and threats, and directions on how many shares to buy and at what price, while the organisers traded the opposite side. The release puts victim losses at over $10 million.

This library tags the matter as boiler rooms, 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2017-07-12 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.

• SEC litigation release

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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.