SEC v. John Steven Blount (ponzi schemes, 2016)

Settled

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In July 2016 the SEC barred John Steven Blount of Lake Charles, Louisiana by settled order from the securities industry, after his guilty plea and 235-month sentence for a Ponzi scheme that took about $5.8 million from at least 72 elderly investors.

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 order recites that from 2007 to December 2014 Blount, an unregistered adviser and broker, sold fictitious bonds and notes with promised returns of up to 19 percent, fabricated statements, and made lulling payments to earlier investors from newer investors' funds. He pleaded guilty in July 2015 to wire fraud and was ordered to pay about $4.3 million in restitution.

The record showed an unknown status, a split name and no criminal case. The order imposes bars and no money.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document 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. 2016-07-22 Administrative proceeding instituted (findings)

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 order

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.