The SEC recently charged a Wheaton, IL-based securities lawyer and his law firm for their roles in a fraudulent scheme to conceal the identity of a company's principal control person - a convicted felon who had been previously incarcerated for securities fraud. In settling the SEC charges, Adam Tracy and his law firm, Securities Compliance Group, Ltd., agreed to pay around $28K in fines, disgorgement (~$2.5K) and interest.

SEC FINDINGS.   Adam Tracy and Securities Compliance Group (the "Defendants") were retained by a convicted felon and his company, Sonant Communications Corp., to file a registration statement with the SEC for an IPO of 10 million shares of common stock. At the time, Sonant Communications was a telecommunications firm, created to provide telecommunications services to small and medium-sized companies. It is no longer in business.

As part of the arrangement, Tracy agreed to conceal the felon’s role with the company from the SEC and the investing public. So, from April 2015 through October 2015, the Defendants prepared and filed materially false registration statements with the SEC on behalf of Sonant Communications. The registration statements omitted the felon's name and, instead, inserted others as being the principal officers and control persons of Sonant – without their knowledge or consent.

[For further details, click on …  SEC Complaint]