Acevedo and Roseman allegedly received more than $3 million in commissions and other compensation from the Woodbridge scheme. They are charged with violating securities registration, broker-dealer registration and anti-fraud provisions of federal securities laws.
The SEC is seeking disgorgement of ill-gotten gains with interest and financial penalties.
Woodbridge filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2017 as the SEC and regulators from about 25 states investigated the company’s activities. At the time of its bankruptcy the firm still owed about $750 million to nearly 9,000 noteholders.
Shapiro had previously been charged in the scheme, along with Woodbridge and the firm’s highest-earning unregistered brokers, in December of 2018. In those charges, the SEC alleged that he had lived a $21 million lifestyle that included luxury vehicles and jewelry, private planes and “posh” country clubs.
At least one of the brokers implicated in those December 2018 charges settled with the SEC by paying more than $1 million in penalties and disgorgement and accepting a securities industry bar.
The criminal indictment, unsealed on Thursday, alleges that Shapiro took $35 million of investor money for his personal benefit, spending $6.7 million on a personal home, $3.1 million chartering private jets, $2.6 million on home improvements, $1.8 million on personal income taxes, $1.4 million on his ex-wife and more than $672,000 on luxury automobiles.
Shapiro, Roseman and Acevedo were arrested on Friday in California. At a preliminary hearing in the Central District of California, Shapiro was ordered to be detained in prison.
In January, a federal court ordered Woodbridge, Shapiro and affiliated companies to pay $1 billion for operating the Ponzi scheme.