SEC v. eCareer Holdings, Inc., eCareer, Inc., Joseph J. Azzata, Dean A. Esposito, Joseph DeVito, and Frederick J. Birks, et al. (boiler rooms, 2015)

Settled

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.

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In April 2015 the SEC filed fraud charges and obtained an asset freeze against eCareer Holdings, its CEO and three brokers who allegedly cold-called investors from a South Florida boiler room to sell unregistered eCareer shares. A consent final judgment against CEO Joseph Azzata on August 13, 2018 closed the case; the order does not state the amounts, which are in his consent.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-23242
Date filed	2015-04-16
Date resolved	2018-08-13
Court	U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida
Status	settled
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Bars imposed	conduct-based injunction
Defendants	eCareer Holdings, Inc. (entity) ; eCareer, Inc. (entity) ; Joseph J. Azzata (individual) ; Dean A. Esposito (individual) ; Joseph DeVito (individual) ; Frederick J. Birks (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.13(a) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Boiler rooms

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 April 16, 2015 as litigation release 23242. The defendants named are eCareer Holdings, Inc., eCareer, Inc., CEO Joseph J. Azzata and brokers Dean A. Esposito, Joseph DeVito and Frederick J. Birks, with relief defendants, in the Southern District of Florida. As alleged, investors were cold-called by a boiler room that the three brokers ran, selling unregistered shares for working capital while about 30 percent of proceeds went to the brokers and sales agents, who had been barred from the industry and hid it. On April 7, 2015 the court entered a temporary restraining order and asset freeze, and the SEC suspended trading in eCareer.

This library tags the matter as boiler rooms, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Outcome. The Southern District of Florida docket shows a Final Judgment Against Defendant Joseph J. Azzata (Document 178, August 13, 2018, Judge Cohn), entered on his consent without admitting or denying the allegations. It orders him to pay disgorgement, prejudgment interest and a civil penalty in the amounts set out in his consent, which we did not open, so no money is stored. It lifts his asset freeze, keeps the earlier permanent injunction against him in force, treats the allegations as true only for bankruptcy-discharge purposes, and directs the clerk to close the case. Closing the case suggests the other defendants had already been resolved, but we did not open those judgments, so the outcome for eCareer Holdings, eCareer, Inc., Esposito, DeVito and Birks is not confirmed 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.

Boiler rooms — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2015-04-16 Litigation release published
2018-08-13 Consent final judgment against Joseph J. Azzata; case closed (S.D. Fla.)

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. Andrew Spaventa and others (boiler rooms, 2026)	SEC	2026-08-17	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Timothy Page, Trevor Page and others (boiler rooms, 2024)	SEC	2024-11-20	Boiler Rooms , Undisclosed Control Blocks	$7.7m	judgment
SEC v. Mario Gogliormella, Steven Lacaj, and Karim Ibrahim a/k/a/ Chris Hayes (boiler rooms, 2024)	SEC	2024-06-12	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Legend Venture Partners LLC (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-07-11	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Vuuzle Media Corp., Vuuzle Media Corp. Limited, Ronald Shane Flynn, and Richard Marchitto (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-06-27	Boiler Rooms	$25.8m	judgment
SEC v. Matthew Nicosia, William Reininger, Fabrizio Di Carlo, and Ronald Touchard (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-04-10	Boiler Rooms	$223k	judgment

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.