SEC v. Stephen Keith Woodard, Sr. (ponzi schemes, 2023)

Settled

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In March 2023 the SEC charged Stephen Keith Woodard, Sr. with running a Ponzi scheme that raised about $6 million from roughly 30 investors, many met through his church. He consented to a bifurcated judgment, and on January 2, 2024 the court ordered $5,924,000 of disgorgement, $569,512.50 of prejudgment interest and a $5,924,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$5.9m

Disgorgement

$5.9m

Prejudgment interest

$570k

Total relief

$12.4m

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on March 1, 2023 as release LR-25654. The complaint alleges that Woodard raised about $6 million from roughly 30 purchasers of promissory notes, many recruited through his church, and used most of it to pay phantom returns while hiding trading losses with false statements.

This library tags the matter as a Ponzi scheme because the document describes returns to earlier investors paid from later investors' money, as alleged or found. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

Woodard consented to a bifurcated judgment: the court first entered the injunction by consent, then decided the money on the SEC's motion. The remedies judgment, signed in Honolulu on January 2, 2024, orders disgorgement of $5,924,000, prejudgment interest of $569,512.50 and a civil penalty of $5,924,000, payable within 30 days. I did not open the earlier partial judgment, so the date of the consent injunction is not recorded here. The judgment does not describe any criminal case.

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. 2023-03-01 Litigation release published
2. 2024-01-02 Judgment on remedies (D. Haw.): disgorgement, interest and civil penalty

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
• Judgment as to Stephen Keith Woodard, Sr.

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.