SEC v. National Realty Investment Advisors LLC, Rey E. Grabato II, Daniel Coley O'Brien, Thomas Nicholas Salzano and others (ponzi schemes, 2022)

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.

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In October 2022 the SEC charged National Realty Investment Advisors LLC, Rey E. Grabato II and 5 others. The complaint alleges that NRIA and four former executives ran a Ponzi-like scheme raising about $600 million from roughly 2,000 investors, paying distributions from other investors' money and falsifying fund financials. Budinska and Samul are named as relief defendants; the officer-and-director bars are sought, not imposed.

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on October 14, 2022 as release LR-25558. The complaint alleges that NRIA and four former executives ran a Ponzi-like scheme raising about $600 million from roughly 2,000 investors, paying distributions from other investors' money and falsifying fund financials. Budinska and Samul are named as relief defendants; the officer-and-director bars are sought, not imposed.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

A parallel criminal proceeding is referenced. Civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

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.

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. 2022-10-14 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. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.