SEC v. Ernest J. Romer, III (2018)

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.

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In September 2018 the SEC sued former Michigan registered representative Ernest Romer for allegedly taking over $2.7 million from at least 30 brokerage customers. The SEC's own pages show he received 13 state embezzlement convictions in December 2018, but no outcome of the civil case was found, so the record stays at filed.

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 SEC announced the complaint on September 18, 2018 (LR-24274) in the Eastern District of Michigan. From 2014 to 2016 Romer allegedly told customers he would invest in the market, then spent the money on himself and his family, traded in his own account, and made some payments to other customers. He is charged with violating Section 17(a), Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5; the complaint asked for disgorgement, interest and penalties.

The Ponzi tag is removed: the release describes theft of customer funds, and payments to other customers are one of several uses of the money.

We checked the SEC's litigation releases and administrative proceedings on 2026-10-04. A February 2019 administrative order shows that Romer pleaded no contest to 13 counts of embezzlement in a Michigan state court and on 5 December 2018 received convictions and a sentence of 85 to 240 months in prison with $2,650,000 in restitution. The order does not say that this state case is the same conduct as the SEC complaint and does not report any outcome of the SEC civil action, so the status stays filed and no sentence or money amount is recorded.

Timeline

1. 2018-09-18 Litigation release published
2. 2019-02-22 SEC institutes follow-on proceedings citing Romer's Michigan embezzlement conviction (civil case outcome not reported)

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
• SEC administrative order instituting proceedings against Romer

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.

Record added September 10, 2026. If this matter has since resolved, been withdrawn or been dismissed, we want to know: submit a correction.