SEC v. Richard P. Cedrone, Steven R. Ferris and George R. Thoreson (marking the close, 2017)

Judgment entered

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In September 2017 the SEC announced settlements, subject to court approval, with three former registered representatives, Richard P. Cedrone, Steven R. Ferris and George R. Thoreson, accused of coordinating manipulative trading, including marking the close, to push the microcap Abakan toward a Nasdaq listing. Cedrone agreed to a $150,000 penalty and $5,013 disgorgement, Thoreson to a $75,000 penalty and industry bars; Ferris's penalty is deferred.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$225k

Disgorgement

$5k

Prejudgment interest

$666

Total relief

$231k

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 these settlements on September 5, 2017 as litigation release LR-23928, in civil action 17-CV-80999 in the Southern District of Florida, filed August 31, 2017. The defendants are Richard P. Cedrone, Steven R. Ferris and George R. Thoreson (3 individuals, 0 entities). Earlier versions of this record merged the first two names. The settlements were subject to court approval.

The SEC alleges that Cedrone and Ferris, investor relations consultants for Abakan Inc., worked with Thoreson, who made most of the trades, to keep Abakan's price at or above $2 for the 90 trading days Nasdaq's listing standard required. Thoreson bought 629,675 shares for more than $1.3 million and told the others by email when he had marked the close. The company never obtained the listing. The SEC also alleges Ferris ran unregistered public offerings of Abakan stock.

Without admitting or denying the allegations, the three consented to judgments for violations of Securities Act Section 17(a) and Exchange Act Sections 9(a)(2) and 10(b), with further violations by Ferris and Cedrone, and to a ban on ordering trades in the last 60 minutes of any trading day. Cedrone agreed to $5,013 of disgorgement, $666 of interest and a $150,000 penalty, a figure that reflects a prior Commission order. Thoreson agreed to a $75,000 penalty and industry and penny stock bars. Ferris's penalty is deferred until his cooperation ends. The record stores the combined $225,000 of penalties; the earlier $75,000 figure was Thoreson's alone.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

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.

• Marking the close — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2017-09-05 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. submit a correction.