SEC v. Santos Kidd (ponzi schemes, 2026)

Judgment entered

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In 2026 the SEC announced a judgment against Santos Kidd requiring $285,155.97 in disgorgement, $37,467.18 in prejudgment interest and a $285,155.97 civil penalty, a total of $607,779.12, in a case involving Ponzi-like payments in a mobile home investment scheme.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$285k

Disgorgement

$285k

Prejudgment interest

$37.5k

Total relief

$608k

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 allegations are that Chimene Van Gundy and her company ORES told investors the money would buy, refurbish and sell mobile homes but instead made Ponzi-like payments, paid undisclosed sales commissions and paid Van Gundy's expenses. Kidd, a third-party salesperson who distributed the offering materials and encouraged some investors to borrow against their homes to invest, is ordered by default judgment of June 1, 2026 to pay the sums above.

The record had the disgorgement and interest but not the equal civil penalty.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes money from later investors being used to pay earlier ones. 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. 2026-06-12 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.