SEC v. John James Sheehan, Jr. (ponzi schemes, 2020)

Settled

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In 2020 the SEC settled an administrative order against John James Sheehan, Jr., finding he was an unreasonable figurehead for the Saivian Ponzi and pyramid scheme, with a $37,500 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$37.5k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$37.5k

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

On January 10, 2020 the SEC accepted a settlement with John James Sheehan, Jr., who served as the public-facing president of Saivian LLC between November 2015 and October 2016 without real control. The order finds he made inaccurate statements about the business and masked Eric Dalius's control, violating Securities Act Section 17(a)(3), and imposes a $37,500 penalty. Saivian offered unregistered securities in what the order calls a fraudulent Ponzi and pyramid scheme.

Sheehan is not found to have violated Section 5; the unregistered offering is attributed to Saivian, so the unregistered distributions tag has been replaced with ponzi schemes.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes, 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.

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

Timeline

1. 2020-01-10 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

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

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.