SEC v. Robert S. Davis, Jr., et al. (ponzi schemes, 2019)

Settled

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In May 2019 the SEC charged Charles Nilosek, a Massachusetts sales agent for Woodbridge Group, with selling over $23 million of Woodbridge securities as an unregistered broker. On 29 December 2021 a California federal court entered a final judgment on his consent ordering $287,666 in disgorgement and $73,841.53 in interest. The charges were registration violations, not fraud.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$288k

Prejudgment interest

$73.8k

Total relief

$362k

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 amended complaint on May 22, 2019 (LR-24476); the case is captioned SEC v. Robert S. Davis, Jr., et al. in the Central District of California. It charges Nilosek only under Securities Act Sections 5(a) and 5(c) and Exchange Act Section 15(a)(1) and sought disgorgement, interest and penalties. The Ponzi scheme is Woodbridge's, which a court had ordered to pay $1 billion.

The record named the defendant as "Robert S. Davis, Jr., et al."; the charged individual is now named. The tag is retained pending the lead's decision on unregistered sellers of third-party Ponzi products.

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.

Outcome. A final judgment filed in the Central District of California on 29 December 2021 is based on a consent judgment signed by Nilosek, who does not admit the allegations under the standard terms. It orders disgorgement of $287,666 and prejudgment interest of $73,841.53, for a total payment of $361,507.53; the filing shows no civil penalty. The judgment covers Nilosek only, the individual named in this record. The charges against him were registration violations, so the Ponzi tag reflects the Woodbridge scheme he sold into rather than a fraud charge against him.

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. 2019-05-22 Litigation release published
2. 2021-12-29 Final judgment entered against Charles Nilosek on consent: $287,666 disgorgement and $73,841.53 interest

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 Charles Nilosek (SEC-hosted court filing)

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.