SEC v. Michael Mooney, Britt Wright and Penny Flippen (2022)
Judgment entered
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.
In June 2022 the SEC charged Southport Capital adviser representatives Michael Mooney, Britt Wright and Penny Flippen over recommending the Horizon Private Equity III fund to clients. On March 25, 2025 the Northern District of Georgia entered a final judgment against Mooney with $793,391 in disgorgement, $300,571 in interest and a $230,464 penalty. The outcome for Wright and Flippen was not checked.
The record
| Agency | SEC |
|---|---|
| Release number | LR-25420 |
| Date filed | 2022-06-14 |
| Date resolved | 2025-03-25 |
| Court | U.S. District Court, Northern District of Georgia |
| Status | judgment |
| Criminal parallel | No |
| Defendants | Michael Mooney ; Britt Wright ; Penny Flippen |
| Cited as charged or alleged | Advisers Act s.206 ; Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Securities Act s.17(a) |
| Techniques |
What was ordered
- Civil penalty
- $230k
- Disgorgement
- $793k
- Prejudgment interest
- $301k
- Total relief
- $1.3m
- Alleged gain
- —
What is alleged to have happened
The SEC filed the complaint on June 10, 2022 in the Northern District of Georgia. The Ponzi scheme is Woods' and Horizon's, which the SEC sued in August 2021; these three are charged as advisers who recommended it.
The Ponzi tag is removed because the defendants are charged as advisers who recommended another person's scheme. The record ran two names together; they are now separate.
Outcome. The final judgment against Mooney, dated March 25, 2025, imposes an injunction and orders disgorgement of $793,391, prejudgment interest of $300,571 and a civil penalty of $230,464, $1,324,426 in total. The first pages of the SEC's copy are a scan we could not read in full, so we cannot say whether Mooney consented, whether the injunction covers the antifraud provisions, or whether any bar was imposed; the SEC's whistleblower notice also dates the qualifying judgment March 25, 2025. The record named Wright and Flippen too, and no judgment for them was checked.
Timeline
- 2022-06-14 Litigation release published
- 2025-03-25 Final judgment as to Michael Mooney
Primary documents
Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.