SEC v. Live Well Financial, Inc., Michael C. Hild, Eric Rohr, and Darren Stumberger (mismarking, 2019)

Settled

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In August 2019 the SEC charged Live Well Financial, Inc. and executives Michael Hild, Eric Rohr and Darren Stumberger in the Southern District of New York with fraud involving mismarked loans, alongside a criminal case. Consent judgments for the three individuals were completed by May 20, 2025, with disgorgement of about $24.8 million deemed satisfied by criminal forfeiture and restitution orders and civil penalties waived or dismissed.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$24.8m

Prejudgment interest

$829k

Total relief

$25.6m

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 action on August 29, 2019 as litigation release LR-24579, filing civil action 1:19-cv-8086 in the Southern District of New York. The defendants are Live Well Financial, Inc., Michael C. Hild, Eric Rohr and Darren Stumberger (3 individuals, 1 entity). Earlier versions of this record merged the company and the first two executives into a single entity and showed the matter as settled.

The complaint alleges that Live Well, at Hild's direction, submitted falsely inflated prices for its portfolio of complex reverse-mortgage bonds to a pricing service that he knew would publish whatever it was given. Most of Live Well's lenders relied on those prices in lending against the bonds through repurchase agreements, so the company borrowed tens of millions of dollars more than accurate prices would have allowed and funded lavish pay. The bond portfolio's reported value rose from $71 million to $570 million in 18 months. The scheme collapsed in 2019 when lenders sought to sell the bonds back and Live Well could not complete the repurchases, leaving counterparties exposed to losses above $80 million.

Rohr and Stumberger consented to partial judgments permanently enjoining them; the claims against Live Well and Hild remained pending. The complaint asked for disgorgement, penalties and officer and director bars against Hild and Rohr; what the court actually ordered is described below. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York announced criminal charges against Hild, Rohr and Stumberger the same day. No monetary relief is recorded.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

Outcome for the three individuals. On September 19, 2023 the court entered a judgment against Hild permanently barring him from serving as an officer or director of a public company, holding him liable for $22,606,752 in disgorgement deemed satisfied by the forfeiture order in his criminal case, and waiving civil penalties in light of his prison sentence (the length is not stated in the judgment). On May 20, 2025 final judgments were entered against Stumberger, liable for $2,197,632 in disgorgement and $829,126 in interest, deemed satisfied by a $45,715,100 criminal restitution order, and against Rohr, whose officer-and-director bar stands while the SEC's claims for disgorgement, interest and penalty were dismissed. The money fields record Hild's and Stumberger's disgorgement and Stumberger's interest. The judgments were entered on the defendants' consent. The position of the company, Live Well Financial, Inc., was not checked.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2019-08-29 Litigation release published
2. 2023-09-19 Final judgment against Michael Hild
3. 2025-05-20 Final judgments against Eric Rohr and Darren Stumberger

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
• Final judgment as to Hild, 19 September 2023
• Final judgment as to Stumberger, 20 May 2025
• Final judgment as to Rohr, 20 May 2025

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 20, 2026. submit a correction.