{"id":6742,"date":"2018-12-26T11:54:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T17:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/?p=6742"},"modified":"2018-12-26T11:54:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-26T17:54:02","slug":"sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tThe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sec.gov\/news\/press-release\/2018-296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">US Securities and Exchange Commission<\/a> has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of Companies securities to retail investors. Woodbridge, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year, its owner Robert H. Shapiro, and several others have since been charged with running a $1.2B Ponzi scam that defrauded nearly 8,500 investors. Many of their victims were older investors who together took almost $400M out of their IRA to invest in the securities.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the SEC is charging 13 unregistered brokers that were among the top sellers of Woodbridge securities. Collectively, they allegedly sold over $350M in the unregistered securities to more than 4,400 investors. The regulator contends that the defendants promoted the Woodbridge securities as \u201csafe\u201d investments, making millions of dollars in commissions from the sales even though they were not registered brokers or even affiliated with a registered brokerage firm and should never have sold the Woodbridge investments to begin with. The brokers named in the SEC broker fraud case include:<\/p>\n<p>\u2022 Robert S. Davis, Jr., the VP of Old Securities Financial Group<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of Companies securities to retail investors. Woodbridge, which filed for bankruptcy protection last year, its owner Robert H. Shapiro, and several others have since been charged with running a $1.2B Ponzi scam that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3773,3783,3760],"tags":[3238],"class_list":["post-6742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broker-fraud","category-broker-misconduct","category-sec-enforcement","tag-woodbridge-ponzi-fraud"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; December 26, 2018<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of &#8212; December 26, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; December 26, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of &#8212; December 26, 2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; December 26, 2018","description":"The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of &#8212; December 26, 2018","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; December 26, 2018","twitter_description":"The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of &#8212; December 26, 2018","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/"},"author":{"name":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"headline":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam","datePublished":"2018-12-26T17:54:02+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/"},"wordCount":568,"keywords":["Woodbridge Ponzi Fraud"],"articleSection":["Broker Fraud","Broker Misconduct","SEC Enforcement"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/","url":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/","name":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; December 26, 2018","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-12-26T17:54:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431"},"description":"The US Securities and Exchange Commission has filed civil charges against a number of companies and brokers who illegally sold Woodbridge Group of &#8212; December 26, 2018","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/sec-files-charges-against-10-companies-and-13-unregistered-brokers-that-sold-woodbridge-securities-in-1-2b-ponzi-scam\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"SEC Files Charges Against 10 Companies and 13 Unregistered Brokers That Sold Woodbridge Securities in $1.2B Ponzi Scam"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/","name":"Investor Lawyers Blog","description":"Published By Investment Fraud Attorneys \u2014 Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e0240e0754684b69f7d6a7de1b9f1431","name":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c7f8f04990816cd4044977eb59908da8c8d1ae487cc919cebd7027b74a0740a3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c7f8f04990816cd4044977eb59908da8c8d1ae487cc919cebd7027b74a0740a3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c7f8f04990816cd4044977eb59908da8c8d1ae487cc919cebd7027b74a0740a3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pedX9K-1KK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}