SEC v. Wynn Charlebois et al. (ponzi schemes, 2022)

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 3, 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.

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In May 2022 the SEC filed an emergency action against Charlotte consultant Wynn Charlebois and WC Private LLC for operating a $7 million Ponzi scheme that took money from at least 75 investors since 2019 through fictitious options contracts and other bogus investments, spent on family debts and personal expenses.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

—

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 the case on May 19, 2022 (LR-25397) in the Western District of North Carolina, charging Section 17(a) and Section 10(b) and seeking an asset freeze, an accounting, disgorgement and penalties.

The record named the defendants as "Wynn Charlebois et al." and showed the status as unknown; the two are named and the status is filed.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the document describes it as a scheme paying earlier investors with later investors' money. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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. 2022-05-19 Litigation release published

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

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.