SEC v. Ralph T. Iannelli and Essex Capital Corporation (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Settled

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In June 2018 the SEC charged equipment leasing company Essex Capital Corporation and founder Ralph T. Iannelli over more than $80 million of promissory notes allegedly sold on false statements. Iannelli consented to a final judgment on June 5, 2019 requiring $9.96 million in disgorgement, about $455,000 in interest and a $640,000 penalty, without admitting or denying the allegations.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$640k

Disgorgement

$10m

Prejudgment interest

$455k

Total relief

$11.1m

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 complaint alleges that from 2014 to 2017 the defendants gave one adviser fake financial statements overstating assets by over $20 million, told another that leases would be assigned although they were pledged to banks, paid existing investors with new money, and paid Iannelli millions in bonuses and loans. The SEC requested emergency relief.

The allegations were settled by a consent judgment against Iannelli, described below. The record listed the lead name with "et al."

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.

On June 5, 2019 the Central District of California entered a final judgment against Iannelli on his consent, without admitting or denying the complaint's allegations. It permanently enjoins him and orders disgorgement of $9,960,000, prejudgment interest of $454,828.21 and a civil penalty of $640,000. The amounts recorded here are Iannelli's only. The judgment document covers Iannelli personally; how the case against Essex Capital Corporation ended was not checked, and the judgment does not show any criminal sentence.

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. 2018-06-06 Litigation release published
2. 2019-06-05 Consent final judgment against Ralph T. Iannelli entered

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
• Final judgment as to Ralph T. Iannelli, 5 June 2019

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.