SEC v. Garrett M. O'Rourke and Michael J. Black (pump and dump, 2019)

Settled

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In July 2019 the SEC charged Garrett O'Rourke and Michael Black with cold-calling retail investors to sell microcap stocks in a pump-and-dump scheme. On 30 November 2020 a New York federal court entered a consent judgment against O'Rourke ordering $5,763,719 in disgorgement and interest and a penny stock bar. The SEC said its case against Black was continuing; both had also been charged criminally.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$5.8m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$5.8m

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 July 19, 2019 as release LR-24543. The respondents named are Garrett M. O'Rourke and Michael J. Black (2 individuals, 0 entities). The action was brought in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York.

This library tags the matter as pump and dump, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The conduct is recorded against equities.

Non-monetary relief recorded: penny stock bar.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

Outcome. The SEC's November 2020 release says the Eastern District of New York entered a final consent judgment against O'Rourke on 30 November 2020, resolving all claims against him. It enjoins him from the antifraud and registration provisions charged, bars him from penny stock offerings and orders $5,763,719 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest combined, the amount held in the disgorgement field; no separate penalty is reported. The release says the SEC's litigation against Michael Black was ongoing, and I did not check how it ended, so this outcome covers O'Rourke only. It also notes both men were charged in a parallel criminal case, but gives no result. The judgment was by consent, so the allegations were not tried.

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.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2019-07-19 Litigation release published
2. 2020-11-30 Final consent judgment entered against O'Rourke: injunction, penny stock bar, $5,763,719 disgorgement and interest

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 litigation release 24971 (O'Rourke judgment)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.