SEC v. Ronald A. Fossum, Jr. and Alonzo R. Cahoon (unregistered distributions, 2017)

Settled

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In December 2017 the SEC sued Ronald A. Fossum, Jr. and Alonzo R. Cahoon in Washington over unregistered offerings of three investment funds and misappropriation of investor money. Fossum consented to a final judgment on June 7, 2018 with $840,729 disgorgement, $110,823 interest and a $320,000 penalty; the SEC said at that time the case against Cahoon was continuing.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$320k

Disgorgement

$841k

Prejudgment interest

$111k

Total relief

$1.3m

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 this matter on December 20, 2017 as release LR-24017 in the Western District of Washington. According to the complaint, Fossum raised money from more than one hundred investors through unregistered offerings of three funds he controlled, misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars, made false statements and commingled fund assets. This library tags the matter as unregistered distributions; the tagging is ours, not the regulator's.

Outcome: SEC release LR-24166 (June 15, 2018) says that on June 7, 2018 the court entered a consent final judgment against Fossum, who neither admitted nor denied the allegations. It permanently enjoins him, orders disgorgement of $840,729, prejudgment interest of $110,823 and a $320,000 civil penalty, and bars him from participating in securities offerings other than for his own account. The release adds that in settled administrative proceedings he agreed to an industry-wide association bar and a penny stock bar. It says litigation was continuing against Cahoon with no trial date; we did not check how the claims against Cahoon ended, so this outcome covers Fossum only.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2017-12-20 Litigation release published
2. 2018-06-07 Consent final judgment entered against Fossum

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 LR-24166 (Fossum consent judgment)

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.