SEC v. Kevan Casey, Adrian James, Jonathan Friedlander and Robert Wheat (pump and dump, 2024)

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.

Report an error in this record (sec-kevan-casey-et-al-pump-and-dump-2024) by email

In August 2024 the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kevan Casey, Adrian James, Jonathan Friedlander and Robert Wheat in the Southern District of Texas over an alleged scheme to secretly accumulate microcap shares through nominee entities, publicise the stocks and sell, generating about $56 million in unlawful sales, with ten entities named as relief defendants. The charges are allegations.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-26071
Date filed	2024-08-09
Court	U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas
Status	filed
Asset class	equities
Criminal parallel	No
Defendants	Kevan Casey (individual) ; Adrian James (individual) ; Jonathan Friedlander (individual) ; Robert Wheat (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Exchange Act s.13(d) and 13(g) ; Securities Act s.17(a) ; Securities Act s.5 (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques	Pump and dump , Undisclosed control blocks

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: —
Alleged gain: $56m

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 August 9, 2024 as release LR-26071. The respondents named are Kevan Casey, Adrian James, Jonathan Friedlander and Robert Wheat (4 individuals, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Texas.

The complaint alleges the defendants amassed shares in five microcap companies at steep discounts through nominees, took the companies public, directed publicity campaigns and sold before prices fell, while filing misleading selling-shareholder questionnaires to avoid being identified as promoters or large holders. The release's own pump-and-dump reference concerns an earlier scheme in private litigation. This library tags the matter as pump and dump and undisclosed control blocks.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

This matter is at the allegation stage. Nothing in the regulator's filing has been proven, and the respondents are entitled to the presumption that it has not been. This page will be updated if the matter is resolved, dismissed or withdrawn.

Checked on 2026-10-04: no outcome found on SEC pages or the court docket. The docket (S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02971) shows cross-motions for summary judgment fully briefed by early September 2026, a mediation set for October 21, 2026, and deadlines suspended until after the summary judgment rulings; we saw no judgment, settlement or dismissal.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 2 techniques 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.
Undisclosed control blocks — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

2024-08-09 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.

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. Airborne Wireless Network and others (pump and dump, 2025)	SEC	2025-02-07	Pump And Dump , Undisclosed Control Blocks	$22.6m	judgment
SEC v. Giguiere et al. (undisclosed control blocks, 2024)	SEC	2024-06-13	Undisclosed Control Blocks , Matched Orders +1	$875k	judgment
SEC v. George Stubos, et al. (undisclosed control blocks, 2024)	SEC	2024-04-15	Undisclosed Control Blocks , Pump And Dump	—	judgment
SEC v. Jonathan Farber, Aarif Jamani, Brian Keasberry (pump and dump, 2024)	SEC	2024-01-16	Pump And Dump , Undisclosed Control Blocks	—	filed
SEC v. George Stubos (undisclosed control blocks, 2023)	SEC	2023-09-12	Undisclosed Control Blocks , Pump And Dump	—	judgment
SEC v. Moynes, et al. (undisclosed control blocks, 2023)	SEC	2023-03-09	Undisclosed Control Blocks , Pump And Dump	$307k	judgment

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