SEC v. Richard D. Hicks (ponzi schemes, 2014)

Settled

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In January 2014 the SEC settled proceedings against Richard D. Hicks of Tyler, Texas, who sold more than $1.8 million of National Note of Utah promissory notes to elderly clients, barring him from the industry and ordering a cease and desist. Payment of $33,591 in disgorgement was waived.

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 order finds that between December 2006 and February 2012 Hicks, who ran an elder-care advisory business and held no securities license, placed 12 clients in National Note notes, repeated its guaranteed 12 percent return without a basis, and kept soliciting clients after learning in October 2010 that the company could not return principal. National Note is the company the SEC separately sued in 2012 as an offering fraud and Ponzi scheme. Hicks is a seller of that product, not its operator.

The order calls for disgorgement of $33,591 and interest of $15,106 but waives payment because of his sworn inability to pay, and imposes no penalty. The record had entered the waived disgorgement as a figure and carried his name split in two.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes because the notes he sold were issued by a company the SEC describes as a Ponzi scheme. 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. 2014-01-14 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

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 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.