SEC v. Stacey Beane, Justin Deckert and Travis Laska (2020)

Judgment entered

Checked against the primary document on October 2, 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-stacey-beane-justin-deckert-2020) by email

In March 2020 the SEC charged Stacey Beane, Justin Deckert and Travis Laska with falsifying and withholding documents in an examination and investigation of adviser Stephen Peters's fraudulent $10 million note offering. Deckert consented to a judgment with a $30,000 penalty and an industry bar with a right to reapply after five years.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-24769
Date filed	2020-03-13
Date resolved	2020-03-13
Status	judgment
Asset class	bonds
Criminal parallel	Yes: convicted (Peters (the adviser, convicted at jury trial)), Eastern District of North Carolina, 2019-06-06
Defendants	Stacey Beane, Justin Deckert (individual) ; Travis Laska (individual)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: $30k
Disgorgement: —
Prejudgment interest: —
Total relief: $30k
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 complaint alleges that while working for VisionQuest Wealth Management the three fabricated conflict-disclosure documents, altered documents to make clients look accredited, forged or backdated signatures, and withheld emails from the production to SEC staff, aiding and abetting books and records violations by the firm. Peters was convicted of twenty counts in June 2019.

Deckert agreed, without admitting or denying, to an injunction, a $30,000 penalty and a bar from the industry with a right to reapply after five years. The proceedings against Beane and Laska continued.

No technique tag is applied. The Ponzi scheme is Peters's, mentioned in the release title; these three are charged with obstructing the investigation of it.

Timeline

2020-03-13 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.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.