SEC v. Barry M. Kornfeld, et al., Lynette M. Robbins and Knowles Systems, Inc. (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Settled

✓ 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.

Report an error in this record (sec-barry-m-kornfeld-et-al-lynette-m-robbins-ponzi-schemes-2018) by email

In August 2018 the SEC charged five individuals and four companies for selling Woodbridge Group securities without registration; Lynette Robbins and her company settled the same day, returning more than $1 million of gains with interest, paying a $100,000 penalty and accepting an industry and penny-stock bar.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$100k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$100k

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

Woodbridge collapsed in December 2017, and the SEC had charged the company and its owner with a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme. The Florida defendants, including Barry and Ferne Kornfeld, Andrew Costa, Albert Klager and Robbins, were among its top revenue producers, selling over $243 million of unregistered securities to more than 1,600 investors for commissions. Barry Kornfeld also violated a prior SEC bar.

The $100,000 penalty in the record is Robbins's; the Kornfelds, Costa and Klager were litigating at this release's date.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. 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. 2018-08-22 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.