SEC v. John David McAfee and Jimmy Gale Watson, Jr. (newsletter scalping, 2022)

Judgment entered

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In 2022, the SEC announced a final consent judgment in the Southern District of New York against Jimmy Gale Watson, Jr. for helping John McAfee promote ICOs to Twitter followers without disclosing payment and a separate scalping scheme in a crypto asset security. Watson was ordered to pay $316,401 disgorgement and $59,533 interest; claims against McAfee ended on his death.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$316k

Prejudgment interest

$59.5k

Total relief

$376k

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on July 15, 2022 as litigation release 25445. The defendants in the October 2020 complaint are John David McAfee and Jimmy Gale Watson, Jr. The SEC alleged McAfee promoted ICOs to his Twitter followers without disclosing that issuers paid him, with Mr Watson negotiating the deals and cashing out the crypto payments, and that they also accumulated a crypto asset security, touted it on Twitter while intending to sell, and sold as the price rose. The July 14, 2022 consent judgment against Mr Watson enjoins him, orders $316,401.48 disgorgement and $59,533.38 interest and bars him from digital asset security offerings; the claims against McAfee were dismissed after a notice of his death. The record previously omitted the interest.

This library tags the matter as newsletter scalping, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2022-07-15 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.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.