SEC v. Michael R. Enea (ponzi schemes, 2015)

Judgment entered

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In July 2015 the SEC reported that Michael R. Enea of Wisconsin was sentenced to two years in prison and $756,000 in restitution for a Ponzi scheme that took $2.1 million from investors, after a 2013 consent judgment ordering $843,120 in disgorgement and interest.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$843k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$843k

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 release is a criminal sentencing notice in a case the SEC filed in October 2013. Enea, who pleaded guilty in March 2015 to wire fraud and a false tax return, was said to have promised returns of 20 to 35 percent on credit card processing portfolios he never bought, paying his own expenses and earlier investors from the money. The 2013 consent judgment enjoined him and ordered $843,120 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, and the Commission barred him in January 2014.

The record held the disgorgement but not the sentence.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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. 2015-07-20 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.

• SEC litigation release

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 10, 2026. submit a correction.