SEC v. Guy Scott Griffithe and Robert William Russell (ponzi schemes, 2021)

Judgment entered

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In November 2021 a California federal court entered monetary judgments in the SEC's case against Guy Scott Griffithe and Robert Russell over investments in a Washington cannabis licence holder: for Griffithe $2,093,336 of disgorgement, $336,194 of interest and a $2,882,539 penalty, about $5.31 million in all.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$2.9m

Disgorgement

$2.1m

Prejudgment interest

$336k

Total relief

$5.3m

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 alleged that Griffithe, through Renewable Technologies Solution, sold interests in SMRB, LLC, owned by Russell, and spent investor money on cars, a yacht and unrelated expenses and paid some purported profits in a Ponzi-like fashion from other investors' money. Both men had agreed to a settlement leaving the monetary relief to the court. The court ordered Russell to pay $275,153 of disgorgement, $44,190 of interest and a $378,888 penalty, and barred Griffithe from participating in unregistered offerings.

The record showed the matter as dismissed and entered the roughly $5.3 million total as disgorgement; the judgment splits it as above, with the figures here being Griffithe's.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the SEC describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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. 2021-11-24 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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 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.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.