SEC v. Rudden, et al. (ponzi schemes, 2020)

Judgment entered

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In October 2020 the SEC announced a final consent judgment in Colorado against Daniel Rudden and his Financial Visions companies for a years-long Ponzi scheme that took money from over 100 investors, ordering $6,511,721 of disgorgement offset by criminal restitution. Rudden was sentenced to 121 months and nearly $20 million restitution.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$6.5m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$6.5m

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 judgment of October 15, 2020 on October 16, 2020 (LR-24946), in a case filed July 2018. Rudden used new investor money to pay interest and redemptions from about 2010. The judgment permanently enjoins them from violating the antifraud provisions.

The record named the defendant as "Rudden, et al." and omitted the 121-month sentence; the principal and his companies are now named.

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.

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. 2020-10-16 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.

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.