Morningview Financial, LLC, Miles M. Riccio, and Joseph M. Riccio, Jr.

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Litigation Release No. 26220 / January 15, 2025

United States Securities and Exchange Commission v. Morningview Financial, LLC, Miles M. Riccio, and Joseph M. Riccio, Jr., No. 22-cv-8142 (S.D.N.Y. filed Sept. 23, 2022)

SEC Settles with Company and Its Managing Member Alleged to Have Acted as Unregistered Dealers

On December 23, 2024, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered final judgments on consent against Defendant Morningview Financial, LLC, a company alleged to have acted as an unregistered dealer; Defendant Miles M. Riccio, Morningview Financial’s managing member and partial owner; and Relief Defendant Joseph M. Riccio, Morningview Financial’s other partial owner who also received a portion of the alleged ill-gotten gains.  

The SEC’s complaint, filed on September 23, 2022, alleged that Morningview Financial and Miles Riccio acted as securities dealers from approximately July 2017 through at least December 2021, notwithstanding the fact that they were not registered as dealers with the SEC, nor was Miles Riccio associated with an SEC-registered dealer.  The SEC also alleged that Defendants funded 35 penny stock issuers in exchange for at least 68 convertible notes and 4 warrant agreements, converted the notes and the warrants to obtain more than 3.2 billion shares of newly issued shares of common stock, and then publicly sold over 90% of these new shares of common stock.  

Without admitting or denying the allegations in the complaint, Defendants and Relief Defendant consented to the entry of the final judgments, which: (1) permanently enjoin Defendants from violating the dealer registration provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934; (2) order Defendants and Relief Defendant to pay total disgorgement of over $3.6 million and total prejudgment interest of over $780,000; (3) order Defendants to pay total civil penalties of $650,000; (4) impose five-year penny stock bars on Defendants; and (5) order that Morningview Financial surrender for cancellation any shares obtained through convertible notes or warrants, conversion rights under any remaining convertible notes, and unexercised warrants.   

Additionally, on January 2, 2025, the SEC entered an administrative order, upon consent, barring Morningview Financial and Miles Riccio from association with any broker, dealer,
investment adviser, municipal securities dealer, municipal advisor, transfer agent, or nationally recognized statistical rating organization, with a right to reapply for reentry after five years.  

The litigation was handled by Christopher R. Kelly and supervised by Gregory R. Bockin in the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office.  The SEC’s investigation that led to this action was conducted by Cecilia B. Connor and Matthew Homberger and was supervised by Kingdon Kase, all of whom are also in the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office.