SEC v. Paul Geraci (boiler rooms, 2022)

Judgment entered

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In November 2022 the SEC opened follow-on administrative proceedings against Paul Geraci, who had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud over a boiler room selling Social Voucher and Stocket stock. Geraci never responded, and on August 21, 2024 the Commission found him in default and barred him from the securities industry and from penny stock offerings. The Commission's opinion records a 57-month prison sentence.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 November 4, 2022 as release 34-96236. The respondent named is Paul Geraci, who the order alleges worked from about fall 2016 to December 2018 for Pinnacle Atlantic, soliciting investors in Social Voucher and Stocket as an unregistered broker. On August 17, 2022 the Southern District of Florida accepted his guilty plea to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, in which he admitted working at a boiler room selling those securities. The earlier record gave the respondent as "Geraci" and "Paul" separately and omitted the guilty plea.

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.

Outcome. In its Opinion of the Commission (Release No. 34-100786, August 21, 2024, File No. 3-21231) the SEC found Geraci in default after he did not answer the order instituting proceedings, did not respond to a show-cause order of December 7, 2023, and did not respond to a motion for default, deemed the order's allegations true, and barred him from association with any investment adviser, broker, dealer, municipal securities dealer, municipal advisor, transfer agent or rating organization and from participating in penny stock offerings. The opinion also records that the district court sentenced him to 57 months in prison and ordered $2.5 million in restitution (amended criminal judgment of January 12, 2023). No civil money penalty is stated. This was an administrative proceeding based on his criminal conviction, not a trial of the underlying fraud in the SEC proceeding.

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.

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

1. 2022-11-04 Administrative proceeding instituted (administrative)
2. 2024-08-21 Commission opinion: default, industry and penny stock bars

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 order
• Opinion of the Commission, Paul Geraci, Release No. 34-100786
• SEC administrative proceeding file 3-21231

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.