GG
Guy Gentile
The Official Record
Editorial illustration of a U.S. SEC document overlaid with a stamped dismissal — for Guy Gentile's statement on the SEC's 2012 penny stock litigation release
Official Statement · June 16, 2026

Statement on the SEC's 2012 Penny Stock Litigation Release

The official response from Guy Gentile to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's 2012-era litigation release — the public record that the SEC's page does not tell you about.

Putnam Valley, New York → Nassau, The Bahamas · June 16, 2026

The SEC's 2012 release is still online. The case that followed it was dismissed. That part is not.

If you searched my name and landed on a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission litigation release describing me as a resident of Putnam Valley, New York charged with penny stock manipulation, you are reading a document from 2012. The page is still on sec.gov. It does not tell you what happened next.

What happened next is a matter of public record. The parallel federal criminal indictment that arose from the same underlying allegations — United States v. Gentile, Crim. No. 16-155, in the District of New Jersey — was dismissed by Chief Judge Jose L. Linares on January 30, 2017 for pre-indictment delay, a Sixth Amendment ruling. The Government did not appeal. The SEC's own related civil case in the same district was dismissed at the pleading stage, and the Commission walked away. Litigation Release No. 24962, which documented that wind-down, has been removed from sec.gov; only the Wayback Machine still preserves it.

I respect the SEC's enforcement role and the courts that decided these matters. I also believe people who land on a fourteen-year-old press release through a Google search deserve the rest of the timeline — the dismissal, the walk-away, the years of cooperation with federal authorities that followed, and the fact that I have never been convicted of a crime. The SEC chose to leave the 2012 release indexed. I choose to publish the rest of the record alongside it.

A separate matter — the 2021–2024 Miami civil case about whether SureTrader, a Bahamas-licensed broker-dealer, also required U.S. registration — is a different proceeding entirely, currently on appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. I address that case in a separate statement on this site.

— Guy Gentile

What the SEC's 2012 release leaves out

Five facts that do not appear on the page Google is showing you

  1. 01

    The parallel federal criminal indictment was dismissed in January 2017.

    The March 2016 District of New Jersey indictment (Crim. No. 16-155) charged the same underlying conduct described in the SEC's 2012-era release. Chief Judge Jose L. Linares dismissed that indictment on January 30, 2017 for pre-indictment delay, finding the Government's delay in bringing charges violated Guy Gentile's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial. The Government did not appeal. Guy Gentile has never been convicted of a crime.

  2. 02

    The SEC's related civil case was also dismissed and the Commission walked away.

    The SEC's companion civil action in the District of New Jersey (Civ. No. 16-1619, before the same court) was dismissed at the pleading stage and the Commission did not continue. The SEC documented its decision to abandon the case in Litigation Release No. 24962 — and then quietly removed that release from sec.gov. Only the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine still preserves it.

  3. 03

    The conduct alleged dates to 2007–2008 — pre-FINRA-examiner-career and over fifteen years old.

    The SEC's 2012-era release describes events from 2007 and 2008 — a small-cap Mexican gold-mining stock and a Kentucky gas-drilling stock — that predate Guy Gentile's later FINRA-registered brokerage businesses and his cooperation work with federal authorities. The page reads in the present tense; the underlying facts are nearly two decades old.

  4. 04

    There was no conviction, no fraud finding against investors, and no industry bar.

    Across the 2012 SEC release, the 2016 DOJ indictment, and the 2016 SEC civil case in New Jersey, there was no criminal conviction, no jury finding of fraud against investors, no finding of customer loss, and no order barring Guy Gentile from the securities industry. His FINRA BrokerCheck record (CRD #2960715) reflects that history.

  5. 05

    Guy Gentile went on to cooperate with federal authorities.

    What the SEC's residual 2012 page does not disclose is that, in the years that followed, Guy Gentile cooperated extensively with federal law enforcement on unrelated market-integrity investigations. That cooperation is summarized on the public cooperation page of this site.

Context

2007 → 2012 → 2017 → today

  1. 2007–2008

    The trades later described in the SEC's 2012-era litigation release take place — a small-cap Mexican gold-mining stock and a Kentucky gas-drilling stock.

  2. July 2012

    FBI arrests Guy Gentile in New Jersey. Guy Gentile cooperates with federal authorities.

  3. 2012

    SEC issues the litigation release that still surfaces near the top of Google search results for the bare query 'Guy Gentile.'

  4. March 2016

    DOJ indicts Guy Gentile in the District of New Jersey on the same withdrawn charges from 2012 (Crim. No. 16-155). SEC files a parallel civil action (Civ. No. 16-1619).

  5. January 30, 2017

    Chief Judge Jose L. Linares dismisses the federal criminal indictment for pre-indictment delay. The Government does not appeal.

  6. After 2017

    The SEC's parallel D.N.J. civil case is dismissed at the pleading stage and the Commission walks away. The SEC documents the wind-down in Litigation Release No. 24962, then later removes that release from sec.gov.

  7. 2021–2024

    A separate SEC civil matter concerning SureTrader / MintBroker International — a registration dispute, not a fraud case — is tried in Miami. That verdict is on appeal in the Eleventh Circuit and is addressed in a separate statement on this site.

  8. Today

    The 2012 SEC litigation release remains live on sec.gov, with no update reflecting any of the above. This statement is the public record's full context.

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Citations

Primary sources

This page is published for informational and commentary purposes and is not legal advice. References to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's published materials are made for purposes of comment, criticism, and reporting.