SEC v. Gary L. McDuff (ponzi schemes, 2016)

Dismissed

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In 2016, an SEC administrative law judge dismissed a follow-on proceeding against Gary L. McDuff, who is serving a 300-month prison sentence, because the Division did not prove he was acting as a broker when he committed the misconduct, so the statutory prerequisite for sanctions was missing.

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on December 16, 2016 as initial decision 1090. The respondent named is Gary L. McDuff. The proceeding was a follow-on to a 2013 default judgment in the Northern District of Texas against him over the Lancorp Financial Fund's investment with the Megafund Ponzi scheme, which ordered $136,336 disgorgement, $65,004 interest and a $125,000 penalty, and to his criminal conviction for money laundering and wire fraud conspiracy (300 months). The judge found the Division had not shown McDuff was acting as a broker, and dismissed the proceeding. Those money amounts belong to the earlier court judgment, not to this decision, so they are removed from the record.

The decision mentions boiler rooms only in describing what a different person did in a prior case, so that tag is removed.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

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.

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

Timeline

1. 2016-12-16 Initial decision

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• Initial decision (ID-1090)
• Order instituting proceedings
• Finality order

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. submit a correction.