SEC v. Steven Markowitz (price manipulation, 2013)

Settled

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In November 2013 the SEC settled an administrative proceeding barring Steven Markowitz, a former principal of Joseph Stevens & Company, from the securities industry and penny stock offerings after his guilty plea to attempted enterprise corruption, larceny and securities fraud, for which he received six months in prison and $1 million in restitution. The plea allocution describes supplying stock blocks to traders who pushed up prices before selling to customers.

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on November 5, 2013 as release 34-70815. The respondents named are Steven Markowitz (1 individual, 0 entities).

The order rests on his criminal conviction and plea allocution, in which he admitted providing stock to firm traders who manipulated the price before selling to customers without disclosure. It is a follow-on bar. This library tags the matter as price manipulation.

The conduct is recorded against bonds and equities, with OTC identified in the release.

Non-monetary relief recorded: registration bar.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

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.

• Price manipulation — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2013-11-05 Administrative proceeding instituted (findings)

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 order

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.