SEC v. NL Technology, LLC et al. (ponzi schemes, 2019)

Judgment entered

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In February 2019 the SEC announced a judgment against Donato Baca Jr. in the NL Technology Ponzi scheme, which raised over $61 million from more than 350 investors. Baca consented to injunctions and to pay $4.7 million of disgorgement, $256,647 of interest and a $960,000 penalty; final judgments against Jonny Ngo and the company were entered in September 2018.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$960k

Disgorgement

$4.7m

Prejudgment interest

$257k

Total relief

$5.9m

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 SEC announced the judgment on February 11, 2019 (LR-24394) in the Southern District of California. The complaint of September 2018 alleged that NL Technology, Ngo and Baca promised to fund a technology import business, but paid earlier investors and spent on lavish personal items. Baca's consent bars him from soliciting investor money in securities offerings.

The record omitted the $960,000 penalty and named the defendants as "NL Technology, LLC et al."; the three are now listed.

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. 2019-02-11 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.