SEC v. Francisco Illarramendi, Highview Point Partners, LLC and others (ponzi schemes, 2017)
Judgment entered
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.
In May 2017 the SEC announced a Connecticut federal court summary judgment against Francisco Illarramendi and his advisers Highview Point Partners and Michael Kenwood Capital Management for a multi-year Ponzi scheme, ordering him to disgorge $25,844,834 and pay a $1 million penalty.
The record
| Agency | SEC |
|---|---|
| Release number | LR-23843 |
| Date filed | 2017-05-24 |
| Date resolved | 2017-05-24 |
| Court | U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut |
| Status | judgment |
| Asset class | bonds |
| Criminal parallel | Yes: sentenced (Francisco Illarramendi), U.S. District Court, District of Connecticut |
| Defendants | Francisco Illarramendi ; Highview Point Partners, LLC ; Michael Kenwood Capital Management, LLC |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Advisers Act s.206 |
| Techniques | Ponzi schemes |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- —
- Disgorgement
- —
- Prejudgment interest
- —
- Total relief
- —
- Alleged gain
- —
What is alleged to have happened
The court relied on Illarramendi's sworn admissions and his criminal guilty plea in finding he made materially false statements, and found him liable under Sections 206(1), (2) and (4) of the Advisers Act. The Highview Point and Michael Kenwood funds and related companies were named as relief defendants.
The record had spliced the defendants and relief defendants into one list, including fragments such as "as Defendants,"; the three defendants are as given.
This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the SEC or the court describes new investors' money being used to pay earlier investors. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.
Money note: the dollar amounts in this record's text describe the May 2017 final judgment against Illarramendi; to avoid counting the same amounts twice, the money fields are left empty here and the figures are held on the record for the same case under release LR-23185 (sec-francisco-illarramendi-et-al-ponzi-schemes-2015).
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
- 2017-05-24 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.
Same matter
The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.
| Date filed | Agency | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015-01-30 | SEC | SEC v. Francisco Illarramendi, Highview Point, Michael Kenwood (ponzi schemes, 2015) | Judgment entered |
| 2017-05-24 | SEC | SEC v. Francisco Illarramendi, Highview Point Partners, LLC and others (ponzi schemes, 2017) | Judgment entered |
| 2017-09-19 | SEC | SEC v. Francisco Illarramendi, Highview Point and Michael Kenwood (ponzi schemes, 2017) | Judgment entered |
Related actions
Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.
| Action | Agency | Filed | Technique | Penalty | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SEC v. Mark D. Hanf and Hoai-Nam Chu Phan (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-09-04 | Ponzi Schemes | — | settled |
| SEC v. Leor Moshe, Jacob Goldman, Isaac Odes (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-08-13 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| CFTC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026) | CFTC | 2026-08-11 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| SEC v. Goliath Ventures, Inc. and Christopher A. Delgado (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-08-11 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |
| SEC v. Aras Investment Business Group S.A.P.I. de C.V. and others (ponzi schemes, 2026) | SEC | 2026-07-24 | Ponzi Schemes | $449k | judgment |
| CFTC v. Trevor L. Vernon and Argent Capital Management LLC (ponzi schemes, 2026) | CFTC | 2026-07-07 | Ponzi Schemes | — | filed |