SEC v. David T. Gilchrist, Christopher Aaron Novinger and Rebecca Novinger (2026)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (sec-david-t-gilchrist-christopher-aaron-novinger-rebecca-novinger-ponzi-schemes-) by email

In September 2026 the SEC charged David T. Gilchrist, Christopher Aaron Novinger, Rebecca Novinger. The complaint alleges four fraudulent offerings in which Gilchrist, an attorney, raised over $1.85 million from at least 22 investors and misappropriated money, including Ponzi-like payments; Novinger solicited investors in two. Rebecca Novinger is a relief defendant, and Gilchrist faces parallel criminal charges.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-26624
Date filed	2026-09-01
Court	U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas
Status	filed
Criminal parallel	Yes: charged (Gilchrist), Northern District of Texas
Defendants	David T. Gilchrist, Christopher Aaron Novinger, Rebecca Novinger (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.15(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on September 1, 2026 as release LR-26624. The complaint alleges four fraudulent offerings in which Gilchrist, an attorney, raised over $1.85 million from at least 22 investors and misappropriated money, including Ponzi-like payments; Novinger solicited investors in two. Rebecca Novinger is a relief defendant, and Gilchrist faces parallel criminal charges.

This library does not tag the matter as a Ponzi scheme: on a source check, the document mentions Ponzi-like payments only in passing, or as part of another party's scheme, and the charges are about something else. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

A parallel criminal proceeding is referenced. Civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

This matter is at the allegation stage. Nothing in the regulator's filing has been proven, and the respondents are entitled to the presumption that it has not been.

Checked on 2026-10-04: no outcome found on SEC pages. The SEC litigation-release index, which runs through LR-26664, has no later release naming these defendants.

Timeline

2026-09-01 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.

Record added September 10, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.