SEC v. Justin Wallace Herman, Anthony Michael Baker, Ian Horn, and Island Capital Inc (boiler rooms, 2022)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

Checked against the primary document on October 4, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

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In 2022, the SEC filed a civil action in the Eastern District of Kentucky against Justin W. Herman, Anthony M. Baker, Ian Horn and Island Capital Inc over a 2017 scheme to sell NxGen Brands (formerly Pyramidion Technology Group) stock at inflated prices, including through paid boiler rooms, for profits of over $1 million. Only Mr Horn had settled, for $1,000 disgorgement and a $10,000 penalty.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-25361
Date filed	2022-04-12
Date resolved	2022-04-12
Court	U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky
Status	filed
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Bars imposed	penny stock bar
Defendants	Justin Wallace Herman (individual) ; Anthony Michael Baker (individual) ; Ian Horn (individual) ; Island Capital Inc (entity)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.9(a)(2) ; Securities Act s.17(a) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Boiler rooms

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $10k
Disgorgement: $1k
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $11k
Alleged gain: $1m

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 April 12, 2022 as litigation release 25361. The defendants named are Justin Wallace Herman, Anthony Michael Baker, Ian Horn and Island Capital Inc. As alleged, Mr Baker arranged a sham acquisition to make the shell look like a business, Mr Horn supplied fraudulent Rule 144 opinion letters so Mr Herman and Island Capital could obtain unrestricted shares, and those two then traded to lift the price and, with paid boiler rooms, dumped their shares for collective profits of over $1 million. Mr Horn consented, subject to court approval, to $1,000 disgorgement plus interest and a $10,000 penalty; those two figures are his alone, and the SEC seeks injunctions, disgorgement, penalties and penny stock bars against the others. The record previously showed the matter as a judgment; it was not resolved as to three of the four defendants.

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

Checked on 2026-10-04: no judgment found for the lead defendant, Justin Wallace Herman. The Eastern District of Kentucky entered a consent final judgment against co-defendant Ian Horn, an attorney charged over Rule 144 opinion letters, on August 3, 2022: an injunction under Securities Act Section 17(a)(2) and (3), $1,000 in disgorgement, $218.20 in interest and a $10,000 penalty, $11,218.20 in all. An SEC administrative order of May 2024 shows a separate follow-on proceeding against Herman was still in settlement discussions then. We did not find outcomes for Herman, Baker or Island Capital, so the record stays as filed.

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.

Boiler rooms — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2022-04-12 Litigation release published
2022-08-03 Consent final judgment against co-defendant Ian Horn

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

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.

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

Action	Agency	Filed	Technique	Penalty	Status
SEC v. Andrew Spaventa and others (boiler rooms, 2026)	SEC	2026-08-17	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Timothy Page, Trevor Page and others (boiler rooms, 2024)	SEC	2024-11-20	Boiler Rooms , Undisclosed Control Blocks	$7.7m	judgment
SEC v. Mario Gogliormella, Steven Lacaj, and Karim Ibrahim a/k/a/ Chris Hayes (boiler rooms, 2024)	SEC	2024-06-12	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Legend Venture Partners LLC (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-07-11	Boiler Rooms	—	filed
SEC v. Vuuzle Media Corp., Vuuzle Media Corp. Limited, Ronald Shane Flynn, and Richard Marchitto (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-06-27	Boiler Rooms	$25.8m	judgment
SEC v. Matthew Nicosia, William Reininger, Fabrizio Di Carlo, and Ronald Touchard (boiler rooms, 2023)	SEC	2023-04-10	Boiler Rooms	$223k	judgment

Record added September 10, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.