SEC v. Stephen C. Peters, VisionQuest Wealth Management, LLC, VisionQuest Capital, LLC, and VQ Wealth, LLC (ponzi schemes, 2017)

Judgment entered

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In December 2017 the SEC sued North Carolina adviser Stephen C. Peters and three VisionQuest companies over a fraudulent offering of more than $10 million in promissory notes to advisory clients. After Peters was convicted in the parallel criminal case, the court granted the SEC summary judgment on March 22, 2021, with $10.1 million in disgorgement and interest deemed satisfied by criminal restitution.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 21, 2017 as release LR-24019 against Stephen C. Peters, VisionQuest Wealth Management, LLC, VisionQuest Capital, LLC and VQ Wealth, LLC, alleging Section 17(a), Section 10(b) and Advisers Act violations in a Ponzi-like note offering. This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes. A parallel criminal case was brought.

Outcome: a later SEC release (LR-24769, March 2020) says Peters was convicted by a jury on June 6, 2019 on twenty counts including investment adviser fraud and falsification of documents given to the SEC. The Eastern District of North Carolina's order of March 22, 2021 grants the SEC's motion for summary judgment, relying on the preclusive effect of that verdict, and the defendants did not contest it to that extent; the SEC sought only injunctive relief and disgorgement, not civil penalties. It enjoins the defendants and holds Peters and the three companies jointly and severally liable for $10.1 million in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, an obligation deemed satisfied by the $15,161,624 restitution ordered in the criminal case. The order gives disgorgement and interest as a single figure, so no money field is stored; we did not open the criminal sentence, so no prison term is recorded.

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. 2017-12-21 Litigation release published
2. 2019-06-06 Peters convicted at jury trial in the parallel criminal case (as reported in SEC release LR-24769)
3. 2021-03-22 Court grants SEC summary judgment against Peters and the VisionQuest companies

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
• Order granting summary judgment (E.D.N.C., March 22, 2021)
• SEC litigation release LR-24769 (reports Peters conviction)

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.