SEC v. Cheryl L. Jones (ponzi schemes, 2017)

Dismissed

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In July 2017 the SEC sued Cheryl L. Jones in the District of Massachusetts for her part in a Ponzi scheme run by her brother, alleging she recruited investors for commissions. On January 5, 2018 the court granted her motion to dismiss and closed the case; the docket shows the court had flagged a five-year limitations problem with the SEC's claims.

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 complaint, filed July 3, 2017 in Boston, alleges she received about $515,000 more from her brother than the roughly $876,000 she invested in his Bridge Fund between 2007 and 2015, and received a monthly "legal retainer". The only charge is a Section 5 violation. The 70-month sentence in the record belongs to her brother, who was criminally convicted, not to her.

She is charged as a recruiter for someone else's Ponzi scheme, which makes the tag a seller-of-a-third-party-scheme one. The allegations were not adjudicated on their merits.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the SEC describes the notes she sold as part of her brother's Ponzi scheme. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The court docket for the case (D. Mass. 1:17-cv-11226) shows that Jones moved to dismiss. In a September 20, 2017 order the judge said she had raised a compelling argument that the SEC's claims for civil penalties were time-barred under the five-year statute of limitations, and ordered a short round of limited discovery on that point. On January 5, 2018 the judge granted her motion to dismiss and issued an order dismissing the case. The docket text read does not state the reasons for the final dismissal or whether it was with prejudice, and no money was ordered against Jones. The allegations were therefore never adjudicated on their merits as far as the docket shows. The scheme's principal, her brother, is a separate matter and was not checked here.

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. 2017-07-03 Litigation release published
2. 2017-09-20 Court says limitations argument is compelling and orders limited discovery
3. 2018-01-05 Court grants motion to dismiss and dismisses the case

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
• Court docket, SEC v. Jones, D. Mass. 1:17-cv-11226 (CourtListener)

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.