SEC v. DeAndre P. Sears et al. (ponzi schemes, 2020)

Settled

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In December 2020 the SEC charged DeAndre Sears and his firm Picasso Group with selling at least $25 million of EquiAlt securities to over 145 largely elderly retail investors across 25 states as unregistered brokers, for about $3.5 million in commissions. They agreed to injunctions with monetary relief to be set later, and Sears to bars. EquiAlt is described as a Ponzi scheme.

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 announced the case on December 31, 2020 (LR-25002) in the Middle District of Florida, covering 2014 to 2020. Charges are limited to registration provisions. Sears consented to associational and penny stock bars in an administrative proceeding.

The record named the defendants as "DeAndre P. Sears et al." and listed only the penny stock bar. The tag is retained pending the lead's decision on unregistered sellers of third-party Ponzi products.

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. 2020-12-31 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.