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SEC v. Domenic Calabrigo, Curtis Lehner, Courtney Vasseur and Hasan Sario (pump and dump, 2022)

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 2, 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.

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In April 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Domenic Calabrigo, Curtis Lehner, Courtney Vasseur and Hasan Sario in the Southern District of New York over alleged pump-and-dump schemes in thinly traded microcap stocks between 2016 and 2018, with net proceeds of over $39 million, and obtained an asset freeze. The U.S. Attorney announced parallel criminal charges. The charges are allegations.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency SEC
Release number LR-25372
Date filed 2022-04-19
Status filed
Asset class equities
Criminal parallel Yes: charged (Calabrigo, Lehner, Sario and Vasseur), U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 2022-04-19
Bars imposed penny stock bar
Defendants Domenic Calabrigo (individual) ; Curtis Lehner (individual) ; Courtney Vasseur (individual) ; Hasan Sario (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.9(a)(2) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques Pump and dump , Undisclosed control blocks

What was ordered

Civil penalty
—
Disgorgement
—
Prejudgment interest
—
Total relief
—
Alleged gain
$39m

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 April 19, 2022 as release LR-25372. The respondents named are Domenic Calabrigo, Curtis Lehner, Courtney Vasseur and Hasan Sario (4 individuals, 0 entities).

This library tags the matter as pump and dump and undisclosed control blocks, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

Non-monetary relief recorded: penny stock bar.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the 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. This page will be updated if the matter is resolved, dismissed or withdrawn.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques 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.

Timeline

  1. 2022-04-19 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.

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.

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Action Agency Filed Technique Penalty Status
SEC v. Airborne Wireless Network and others (pump and dump, 2025) SEC 2025-02-07 Pump And Dump , Undisclosed Control Blocks $22.6m judgment
SEC v. Kevan Casey, Adrian James, Jonathan Friedlander and Robert Wheat (pump and dump, 2024) SEC 2024-08-09 Pump And Dump , Undisclosed Control Blocks — filed
SEC v. Giguiere et al. (undisclosed control blocks, 2024) SEC 2024-06-13 Undisclosed Control Blocks , Matched Orders +1 $875k judgment
SEC v. George Stubos, et al. (undisclosed control blocks, 2024) SEC 2024-04-15 Undisclosed Control Blocks , Pump And Dump — judgment
SEC v. Jonathan Farber, Aarif Jamani, Brian Keasberry (pump and dump, 2024) SEC 2024-01-16 Pump And Dump , Undisclosed Control Blocks — filed
SEC v. George Stubos (undisclosed control blocks, 2023) SEC 2023-09-12 Undisclosed Control Blocks , Pump And Dump — judgment

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