SEC v. Small Business Capital Corp. and Mark Feathers (ponzi schemes, 2018)

Judgment entered

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 3, 2026. The library's summary, tags and figures for this record were compared with the regulator's own document by an AI model (Claude) following written instructions, with sampled and disputed records read a second time. No lawyer has reviewed them. A checked record can still contain errors, and checked does not mean endorsed. See how we check records or report a correction.

Report an error in this record (sec-small-business-capital-corp-ponzi-schemes-2018) by email

In May 2018 the SEC reported that Mark Feathers, who ran Small Business Capital Corp. and two mortgage funds, was sentenced to 33 months in prison and $5.7 million in restitution, in the conduct the SEC sued over in 2012 as a Ponzi-like scheme. A 2013 judgment ordered $7,782,961 in disgorgement and a $10,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$10k

Disgorgement

$7.8m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$7.8m

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's 2012 complaint alleged more than 400 investors were drawn in by 7.5 percent returns, with payments coming partly from fund profits and partly from other investors. Summary judgment against Feathers came in August 2013 and a final judgment in November 2013. He pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in December 2017.

The record held the $10,000 penalty but not the disgorgement or the sentence.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes payments to earlier participants made from later participants' 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. 2018-05-02 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.