SEC v. Justin R. Kimbrough, Terry Nikopoulos and others (ponzi schemes, 2022)

Settled

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In July 2022 the SEC charged Justin Kimbrough, Terry Nikopoulos and five others over an alleged Ponzi scheme that raised at least $3 million from at least 31 investors. On August 5, 2025 the court entered consent final judgments against Kimbrough and Prosperity Consultants, LLC, including joint and several disgorgement of $1,137,437.45 plus $86,882.82 of interest, deemed satisfied by a criminal forfeiture order. The SEC said in September 2025 that its case against Nikopoulos and four entities he controlled remained pending.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$1.1m

Prejudgment interest

$86.9k

Total relief

$1.2m

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on July 1, 2022 as release LR-25436. The complaint alleges a Ponzi scheme that raised at least $3 million from at least 31 investors between June 2020 and April 2021, with investors told their money would fund a real estate wholesale business and the resale of medical products, while the two principals kept at least $1.75 million and paid about $1.05 million to earlier investors as purported dividends.

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.

Outcome as to two respondents. According to SEC Litigation Release 26402 (September 17, 2025) and the final judgment in the docket, the Eastern District of Texas entered consent final judgments on August 5, 2025 against Justin Kimbrough and Prosperity Consultants, LLC, without findings of fact. The judgments permanently enjoin them from violating the antifraud provisions; Kimbrough is also enjoined under the registration provisions, barred from serving as an officer or director of a public company, and subject to a conduct-based injunction on participating in securities offerings other than for his own account on an exchange. They are jointly and severally liable for disgorgement of $1,137,437.45 and prejudgment interest of $86,882.82, with the payment obligation deemed satisfied by a forfeiture order of $2,560,938.87 against Kimbrough in the parallel criminal case. The figures above are recorded once, not twice, because the obligation is joint.

What this does not cover. The release states that the civil action remained pending against Terry Nikopoulos and four entities he controlled. I did not check what has happened to those defendants since September 2025, so this record states an outcome for Kimbrough and Prosperity only. The allegations against all defendants remain allegations unless a court has found otherwise.

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. 2022-07-01 Litigation release published
2. 2025-08-05 Consent final judgments entered against Justin R. Kimbrough and Prosperity Consultants, LLC

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
• SEC litigation release 26402 (consent judgments)
• Final judgment as to Justin R. Kimbrough (E.D. Tex.)

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.