Church-Koegel

I. Background

The SEC filed its complaint against the Defendants on March 5, 2020, alleging that they were among the top revenue-producing salespersons for Woodbridge, purportedly a Ponzi scheme. (ECF No. 1 at ¶1.) Woodbridge “is a Sherman Oaks, California-based financial company” purportedly not registered with the SEC and with no publicly traded stock. (Id. at ¶10.) The Defendants are also all California-based, each residing in the Central District of California. (Id. at ¶¶ 7-9.) From July 2012 through December 2017, Woodbridge raised at least $1. billion from more than 8,400 investors nationwide through allegedly fraudulent unregistered securities offerings. (Id.) The company claimed that it was using investors’ funds to make high interest rate loans to third-party borrowers. In reality, the SEC claims, investors’ funds were used to purchase almost 200 residential commercial properties “primarily in Los Angeles, California and Aspen, Colorado” for entities whose beneficiary was Woodbridge’s owner. (Id. at ¶27.) The Defendants allegedly personally solicited and sold Woodbridge securities in unregistered transactions to many of these investors. (Id.…