SEC v. Joel J. Natario and Jefferson Scott Baker (ponzi schemes, 2025)

Settled

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In May 2025 the SEC charged Joel J. Natario and Jefferson Scott Baker over an alleged $10 million merchant-cash-advance Ponzi scheme. On June 29, 2026 the court entered a consent judgment against Natario, who did not admit the allegations; Baker's outcome was not checked.

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 May 23, 2025 as release LR-26311. The complaint alleges a Ponzi scheme in which Natario and Baker raised over $10 million from about 23 investors for merchant cash advances that were never made, paying returns from other investors' money and showing a deceptive online portal.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome (checked on 2026-10-04): the docket shows that on June 29, 2026 Judge Mahan entered a judgment by consent as to Joel J. Natario only. Without admitting the complaint's allegations, Natario agreed to permanent injunctions against violating the antifraud provisions, including a bar on deceiving investors about the use of their money, and to a permanent injunction against taking part in the offer or sale of securities, with an exception for his own personal account. The judgment makes him liable for disgorgement and prejudgment interest running from February 29, 2020, but leaves the amounts, and whether a civil penalty applies, to be decided later on the SEC's motion, so no money figure is recorded here. This outcome covers Natario alone. The court record we opened does not show what happened to Baker, and we did not check a separate record for him.

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. 2025-05-23 Litigation release published
2. 2026-06-29 Court enters consent judgment against Joel J. Natario; money amounts left for later motion

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
• Consent judgment as to Joel J. Natario (D. Nev. docket entry 44)

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.