SEC v. Daniel Rivera, Matthew Rivera and Robbins Lane (ponzi schemes, 2016)

Settled

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In March 2016 the SEC charged brothers Daniel and Matthew Rivera and their Robbins Lane venture in New Jersey with a $2.7 million Ponzi scheme aimed at about 30 mostly elderly investors, and announced consent judgments with over $1.9 million in disgorgement and interest plus $260,000 in penalties.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$260k

Disgorgement

$1.9m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$2.2m

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 complaint, filed March 24, 2016, alleges that from 2008 to at least 2014 Robbins Lane had no real estate portfolio or operations and that investor money was used to pay other investors and for personal expenses. The court entered the consent judgment on March 28. Daniel Rivera owes more than $1.9 million in disgorgement and interest and a $160,000 penalty; Matthew Rivera owes $20,013 and a $100,000 penalty; two companies are jointly liable for part of Daniel's amount.

The record had only Daniel's penalty and Matthew's disgorgement, labelled as prejudgment interest. The disgorgement entered here includes interest, as the release combines them.

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. 2016-03-30 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.