SEC v. Josh S. Verne (2023)

Settled

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 June 2023 the SEC charged Josh S. Verne over an alleged $30 million offering fraud. A consent final judgment dated August 25, 2026 orders disgorgement of $9,344,279.96 and interest of $1,018,530.41, treated as satisfied by orders in a parallel criminal case.

The record

Structured fields for this action, as recorded in our case library.
Agency	SEC
Release number	LR-25744
Date filed	2023-06-14
Date resolved	2026-08-25
Court	U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania
Status	settled
Criminal parallel	Yes: criminal case referred to, outcome not stated in the document (Josh S. Verne (forfeiture and restitution orders are mentioned))
Defendants	Josh S. Verne (individual)
Cited as charged or alleged	Exchange Act s.10(b) and Rule 10b-5 ; Securities Act s.17(a) (statutes and rules cited in the document; not a finding that they were violated)
Techniques

What was ordered

Civil penalty: —
Disgorgement: $9.3m
Prejudgment interest: $1m
Total relief: $10.4m
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 June 14, 2023 as release LR-25744. The complaint alleges a $30 million offering fraud in which Verne misrepresented his record and the use of funds and took at least $9.3 million for personal use, tuition, jets and loan repayments, among other things Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors.

This library does not tag the matter as a Ponzi scheme: on a source check, the document mentions Ponzi-like payments only in passing, or as part of another party's scheme, and the charges are about something else. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The final judgment, entered in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and dated August 25, 2026, recites that Verne consented to its entry. It orders disgorgement of $9,344,279.96 as net profits from the conduct alleged in the complaint, plus prejudgment interest of $1,018,530.41, a total of $10,362,810.37. That total is deemed satisfied by the $12,173,759 forfeiture order and the $22,498,416.79 restitution order entered in the parallel criminal case.

The document reports no separate civil penalty. It does not state the sentence in the criminal case, and this record does not report one.

Timeline

2023-06-14 Litigation release published
2026-08-25 Consent final judgment entered

Primary documents

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

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. submit a correction.