SEC v. Wells Real Estate Investment, LLC, Janalie C. Bingham and Jean Joseph (ponzi schemes, 2024)

Alleged — pending

These are allegations. SEC has filed an action; nothing in it has been proven, and the respondents have not been found liable. Everything described on this page is what the regulator alleges, not what a court has found. See our editorial policy.

✓ Checked against the primary document on October 4, 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-wells-real-estate-investment-llc-janalie-c-joseph-a-k-a-janalie-c-bingham-pa) by email

In August 2024 the SEC charged Wells Real Estate Investment, LLC, Janalie C. Bingham and 1 other over an alleged $56 million real estate Ponzi scheme raising money from about 660 investors, with an emergency asset freeze. The docket shows judgments against individual defendants Jean Joseph (December 2, 2024) and Janalie C. Joseph (December 4, 2024); we found none against the company, so the matter stays recorded as filed.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

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 August 20, 2024 as release LR-26079. The SEC obtained an emergency asset freeze and alleges a $56 million real estate Ponzi scheme raising money from about 660 investors, with about $28 million diverted to speculative trading and Joseph, a convicted fraudster, acting as an undisclosed control person; 23 affiliated companies are relief defendants.

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.

The claims remain allegations except where a court order, described below, has resolved them.

Partial outcome. The docket (S.D. Fla. 9:24-cv-80980) shows that on December 2, 2024 the court granted the SEC's unopposed motion and entered judgment against defendant Jean Joseph, and on December 4, 2024 it did the same for defendant Janalie C. Joseph, also known as Janalie C. Bingham, and cancelled the trial as to her. The text of those judgments was not available to us, so their terms and amounts are not stated or stored here. We did not find a judgment against Wells Real Estate Investment, LLC, and the docket in 2026 shows a court-appointed receiver still settling claims, a contempt motion against Jean Joseph and other ongoing filings, so the matter overall stays recorded as filed. We checked on 2026-10-04.

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. 2024-08-20 Litigation release published
2. 2024-12-02 Judgment entered against defendant Jean Joseph
3. 2024-12-04 Judgment entered against defendant Janalie C. Joseph (Bingham)

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
• Docket, SEC v. Wells Real Estate Investment (S.D. Fla. 9:24-cv-80980), via CourtListener

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. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.