SEC v. Neil Burkholz, et al. (ponzi schemes, 2020)

Judgment entered

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In June 2020 the SEC announced a final judgment against relief defendant Rhoda Burkholz, wife of Neil Burkholz, who agreed to pay $258,821 in disgorgement and interest combined for receiving proceeds of the alleged $6 million Ponzi scheme run by her husband, Frank Bianco and their companies, which took money from at least 55 investors.

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 judgment of June 10, 2020 on June 15, 2020 (LR-24836) in the Southern District of Florida. She consented without admitting or denying. The complaint alleges the defendants invested less than half the money at near-total loss, repaid other investors with the rest and sent about $880,000 to themselves and their spouses.

The record showed $258,821 as disgorgement; the release gives it as disgorgement and interest combined, so it is blank. The "et al." defendant is replaced by the named parties.

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.

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. 2020-06-15 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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 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. submit a correction.