SEC v. Toon Goggles Inc., et al. (boiler rooms, 2019)

Judgment entered

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In September 2019 the SEC charged Toon Goggles Inc. and founder Ira Warkol over a $19 million securities offering sold through boiler rooms to about 400 retail investors. Warkol's consent judgment was entered on October 28, 2019 (about $2.03 million in disgorgement and interest and a $189,427 penalty), and the company's judgment on October 23, 2020 added a $5 million civil penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$5.2m

Disgorgement

$1.7m

Prejudgment interest

$284k

Total relief

$7.2m

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 September 6, 2019 as litigation release 24588. The defendants named are Toon Goggles Inc. and Ira Warkol, in the Central District of California. The complaint alleges that from August 2012 to late 2016 they raised over $19 million from about 400 investors, with Mr Warkol acting as an unregistered broker, running boiler rooms inside Toon Goggles' offices and giving agents scripts. Mr Warkol consented, without admitting or denying, to an injunction, $2 million combined disgorgement and interest and a $189,427 penalty; the court entered that judgment on October 28, 2019 and the case against the company later ended as described below. A separate order against director of operations Brendan Pollitz carries $34,117 and a $9,472 penalty. The record previously showed the $2 million as interest alone, omitted the penalty and treated the matter as resolved.

This library tags the matter as boiler rooms, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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.

Outcome. The Central District of California entered a final judgment against Warkol on October 28, 2019. It enjoins him from violating the securities-registration provision and orders disgorgement of $1,748,985.42 plus prejudgment interest of $283,641.40 (total $2,032,626.82) and a civil penalty of $189,427. After the court granted the SEC summary judgment against Toon Goggles, Inc. on July 30, 2020, the company stipulated to a final judgment entered on October 23, 2020 that enjoins it and imposes a $5,000,000 civil penalty, and the civil case was closed. The penalty figure recorded here is the sum of the two penalties; the company's judgment as shown on the docket carries no disgorgement. A separate administrative order against an operations director, mentioned in the original release, is not part of these totals.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2019-09-06 Litigation release published
2. 2019-10-28 Final judgment against Ira Warkol
3. 2020-10-23 Final judgment against Toon Goggles, Inc. with a $5,000,000 civil penalty; case terminated

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
• Final judgment as to Ira Warkol, 28 October 2019 (CourtListener copy)
• Court docket, SEC v. Toon Goggles, C.D. Cal. 2:19-cv-07687

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.