Attorney Participated in Solar Generator Ponzi Scheme, SEC Says

A California attorney “played an important role” in a $910 million Ponzi scheme involving a company that claimed to make and lease solar generators, the SEC alleges in an enforcement suit.

“In reality, thousands of the purportedly profitable Generators were never even manufactured, let alone put into use,” the Securities and Exchange Commission says in its complaint filed Sept. 30 in the US District Court for the Eastern District of California. The scam went on for at least seven years, the agency says.

Ari J. Lauer practices in Walnut Creek, Calif., according to his California Bar profile. The SEC ...