A small group of retirees paid a combined $6.2 million last year for ownership stakes in a fancy event-rental space in Carmel, Indiana, expecting it would generate double-digit returns and qualify them for a tax break used by thousands of Americans to defer capital gains on real estate.

Instead, they now own a vacant lot generating no income, and the money appears to be gone. In a federal lawsuit filed in April, most of the investors claim they were duped in a vast fraud involving financial advisers, a property broker and what seemed to be a fast-expanding company called Noah Corp. that hosts weddings, bar mitzvahs and corporate events at venues in 25 states from Utah to Florida to New Hampshire.

Noah filed for bankruptcy last month, not long after the suit was filed, compounding a cash crunch at venues where it was the only tenant. But investors in the Indiana site claim in court documents that the collapse was the result of a “robbing Peter to pay Paul’’ business model in which Noah, broker Rockwell Debt-Free Properties Inc. and others sought to generate a steady flow of new investors.

“Older investment venues paid steady returns to investors, not on the basis of successful management and profitability, as represented by defendants, but through cash generated by new investments or cash generated from other facilities,’’ the plaintiffs, who are mostly in their sixties and seventies, said in their lawsuit.

For years, Sandy, Utah-based Rockwell developed venues all over the U.S. To finance expansion, the company mostly courted individual investors to buy shares in a specific facility that collects steady rental payments from one star tenant, Noah.

“Noah has not defrauded anybody or engaged in any criminal conduct,’’ Daniel K. Brough, the attorney who represents Noah and Chief Executive Officer Bil Bowser, said in a separate court filing. Brough declined to comment further when reached by phone.

SEC Investigation

At a recent bankruptcy hearing, Bowser testified that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Rockwell “and perhaps with respect to Noah,” his bankruptcy lawyer, Kenneth Cannon, said in an interview. Cannon said the SEC hasn’t contacted him, but that he’s been sending the agency documents related to the Chapter 11 filing “because we know the SEC has been looking around a bit.” The SEC declined to comment.

Rockwell’s lawyers didn’t return repeated calls and emails seeking comment on the allegations, and they have yet to respond in court to the Indiana property investors’ lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Salt Lake City.

Rockwell’s business is built around managing real estate with a so-called tenant-in-common ownership structure, which is specifically designed to qualify for a tax break under Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code. The law allows deferral of capital gains on sales of commercial real estate if the profit is used as a passive investment in another rent-generating property. It’s called a 1031 exchange.

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