SEC v. StraightPath Venture Partners LLC, et al. (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 3, 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 June 2022 the SEC announced a preliminary injunction and receiver in New York against StraightPath Venture Partners, StraightPath Management and four individuals in a $410 million pre-IPO stock fraud by unregistered broker-dealers; three individuals must pay over $15 million into the receivership.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-25429
Date filed	2022-06-24
Court	U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
Status	filed
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	StraightPath Venture Partners LLC (entity) ; StraightPath Management LLC (entity) ; Brian K. Martinsen (individual) ; Michael A. Castillero (individual) ; Francine A. Lanaia (individual) ; Eric D. Lachow (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Advisers Act s.206 ; Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.15(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

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 SEC announced the order on June 24, 2022 (LR-25429); the case was filed May 13, 2022 in the Southern District of New York. It alleges they sold pre-IPO shares they did not own, took undisclosed fees and commingled funds, resulting in payments resembling a Ponzi scheme.

The Ponzi tag is removed because the release describes a pre-IPO share fraud. The record named only Lachow; all six defendants are now listed.

Timeline

2022-06-24 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.

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 If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.