SEC v. Carol Ann Pedersen (ponzi schemes, 2019)

Settled

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In March 2019 the SEC charged Long Beach investment adviser Carol Ann Pedersen with a Ponzi scheme that raised at least $29 million from 25 investors, about $25.6 million of which went to Ponzi-style payments. She agreed to a judgment for about $2.7 million of disgorgement and interest, deemed satisfied by a criminal restitution order, subject to court approval.

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 SEC filed the case on March 20, 2019 (LR-24430) in the Central District of California, alongside criminal charges. It alleges Pedersen promised "federally guaranteed" securities and a stock investment pool, but used the money for payments to investors and personal costs, hiding it with fabricated statements. No penalty was sought given her expected plea.

The record showed the $2.7 million as disgorgement and the matter as a judgment; the figure is disgorgement and interest combined, so it is blank, and the settlement was still subject to court approval.

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.

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. 2019-03-20 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.