SEC v. Burkholz, et al. (ponzi schemes, 2019)

Judgment entered

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On May 11, 2020 the Southern District of Florida entered final judgments against Neil Burkholz (by default) and Frank Bianco (by consent), each with a $920,825 civil penalty, and about $874,000 in combined disgorgement and interest. Judgments against the two firms had been entered earlier in 2020.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1.8m

Disgorgement

$874k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$2.7m

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

The SEC announced the action on November 20, 2019 (LR-24669), filed November 14. The complaint alleges they claimed profitable options strategies but invested less than half the money at near-total loss, repaid other investors with the rest and moved about $880,000 to themselves and their spouses.

The record named the defendants as "Burkholz, et al." and showed the status as unknown; the six parties are listed and the status is now judgment.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome. Litigation release 24816 (May 12, 2020) reports final judgments entered May 11, 2020. The Burkholz judgment, by default, finds he violated the antifraud provisions, enjoins him and orders disgorgement and prejudgment interest of $429,580 and a $920,825 penalty. Bianco consented, without admitting or denying the allegations, to an injunction, $443,997 in disgorgement and interest and a $920,825 penalty. The record stores the two penalties as $1,841,650 and the two combined disgorgement-and-interest figures as $873,577. The release says the court had ordered more than $1.2 million against Palm Management and Shore Management in February 2020 and that Bianco's wife consented to a disgorgement judgment of $49,751 plus interest; those amounts are not included here. Litigation against relief defendant Rhoda Burkholz was still ongoing.

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. 2019-11-20 Litigation release published
2. 2020-05-11 Final judgments entered against Burkholz and Bianco

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 24816 (final judgments)

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. submit a correction.