SEC v. Jason McDiarmid, et al. (pump and dump, 2019)

Judgment entered

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In February 2019 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced final judgments in the Central District of California against Jason McDiarmid, Kenneth Telford and Stop Sleep Go, Inc. (formerly Interactive Multi-Media Auction Corp.) over a pump-and-dump in which the two promoters made about $3.3 million. The judgments total about $6.49 million in disgorgement, $0.59 million in interest and $3.29 million in penalties, with officer-and-director and penny stock bars.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$3.3m

Disgorgement

$6.5m

Prejudgment interest

$594k

Total relief

$10.4m

Alleged gain

$3.3m

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 12, 2019 as release LR-24398. The respondents named are Jason McDiarmid, Kenneth George Cedric Telford and Stop Sleep Go, Inc. (2 individuals, 1 entity). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Central District of California.

This library tags the matter as pump and dump, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

The relief recorded in our data is civil penalties of $3,289,532 ($1,644,766 each against McDiarmid and Telford), disgorgement of $6,493,503 and prejudgment interest of $593,906, summed across the two individual judgments. 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.

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.

• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2019-02-12 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.