SEC v. Nicholas D. Skaltsounis (ponzi schemes, 2014)

Judgment entered

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In 2014 an SEC administrative law judge barred Nicholas D. Skaltsounis based on a federal judgment that enjoined him from Section 5 and fraud violations and ordered $948,389 disgorgement, $138,282 interest and a $1,505,000 penalty.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1.5m

Disgorgement

$948k

Prejudgment interest

$138k

Total relief

$2.6m

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

On December 31, 2014 an SEC administrative law judge barred Nicholas D. Skaltsounis from the securities industry and from penny stock offerings, by summary disposition. The order rests on a federal judgment from the Eastern District of Tennessee that, after summary judgment on the Section 5 claim and an October 2013 jury verdict, enjoined him from violating Securities Act Sections 5(a), 5(c) and 17(a) and Exchange Act Section 10(b), and ordered $948,389.13 in disgorgement, $138,282.35 in interest and a $1,505,000 civil penalty. The SEC alleged he ran a Ponzi scheme.

This library tags the matter as ponzi schemes and unregistered distributions, 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 2 techniques 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.
• Unregistered distributions — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2014-12-31 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-729)
• 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.