SEC v. Kevin B. Merrill, et al. (ponzi schemes, 2019)

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 November 2019 the SEC reported that Cameron Jezierski, the last of three defendants in its Ponzi-like scheme case that raised over $345 million, was sentenced to two years in prison, plus a year of home confinement, in the parallel criminal case. Merrill and Ledford were earlier sentenced to 22 and 14 years.

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 SEC announced the sentence on November 25, 2019 (LR-24674); the civil case in Maryland continues. Jezierski must forfeit $116,435 and pay $45,093,384 restitution. The recorded sentence of 264 months is Merrill's 22 years, the longest of the three.

The record named the defendants as "Kevin B. Merrill, et al."; the three are now listed.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Outcome so far. Litigation release 25561 (October 18, 2022) reports final judgments against eight defendants and one relief defendant: Jay Ledford and six Ledford-linked entities are liable jointly for $183,973,833 in disgorgement plus $5,671,794 in prejudgment interest, and Cameron Jezierski for $105,000 plus $2,913 in interest, with the judgments deemed satisfied by the receiver's recoveries and the criminal restitution orders. The same release says the SEC's litigation against Kevin Merrill and relief defendant Amanda Merrill was continuing, so the lead defendant is not resolved on that source. Checked on 2026-10-04: no later outcome for Merrill found on SEC litigation release pages.

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. 2019-11-25 Litigation release published
2. 2022-10-18 SEC reports final judgments against Ledford, Jezierski and entities; Merrill case continuing

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
• SEC litigation release 25561 (judgments against co-defendants)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 4 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

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