SEC v. Energy & Environmental Investments, LLC and others (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Settled

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In February 2023 the SEC announced a settlement with Energy & Environmental Investments, LLC, Energy & Environment, Inc. and 2 others. The SEC filed a complaint and a proposed consent judgment over a clean-energy offering that raised $9.3 million from over 200 investors, alleging that investor money funded a call center and payments to Luddy and that returns were paid in a Ponzi-like scheme. The settlement is subject to court approval; the figures recorded are those the release assigns to Energy & Environmental Investments, with Luddy to pay $1,009,192 in disgorgement and $289,015 in interest and Energy & Environment, Inc.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1m

Disgorgement

$3.4m

Prejudgment interest

$978k

Total relief

$5.4m

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 February 24, 2023 as release LR-25650. The SEC filed a complaint and a proposed consent judgment over a clean-energy offering that raised $9.3 million from over 200 investors, alleging that investor money funded a call center and payments to Luddy and that returns were paid in a Ponzi-like scheme. The settlement is subject to court approval; the figures recorded are those the release assigns to Energy & Environmental Investments, with Luddy to pay $1,009,192 in disgorgement and $289,015 in interest and Energy & Environment, Inc. a $200,000 penalty.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The relief recorded in our data is a civil penalty of $1,035,909, disgorgement of $3,414,836, prejudgment interest of $977,949, as the release or order states it. Penalty and disgorgement are distinct: disgorgement returns the gain, while the penalty is punitive. We store them separately so that aggregate figures across the library are not double-counted.

Non-monetary relief recorded: officer-and-director bar.

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

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. 2023-02-24 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.