$50,000 FINE IMPOSED ON FORMER BROKER, SALES AGENT FOR UNLAWFUL PROMOTION/SALE OF SECURITIES

FROM:  U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION 

Litigation Release No. 23315 / August 12, 2015

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Inofin, Inc., Michael J. Cuomo, Kevin J. Mann, Sr., Melissa George, Thomas Kevin Keough, David Affeldt, and Nancy Keough, Civil Action No. 1:11-CV-10633 (D. Mass., Complaint Filed April 14, 2011)

Court Imposes $50,000 Civil Penalty On Former Broker and Sales Agent of Massachusetts Company

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts has imposed a $50,000 civil penalty against Thomas Kevin Keough ("Kevin Keough") for his role in the unlawful promotion and sale of unregistered securities issued by Inofin, Inc., a subprime auto-financing company. Previously, the Court had entered judgment ordering Kevin Keough (and his wife) to pay a total of over $350,000 in disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.

Kevin Keough was a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the Commission against Inofin, its former executives, and its sales agents alleging they illegally raised at least $110 million from hundreds of individual investors through the sale of unregistered Inofin notes and that Inofin and its executives lied about the company's financial performance and how Inofin was using its investors' money. The Commission alleged that Kevin Keough unlawfully earned commissions by promoting and selling Inofin's unregistered securities and that he concealed his activities from his broker-dealer employers by directing Inofin pay his illegal commissions to his wife, Nancy, who was named as a relief defendant in the Commission's action for the purpose of recovering these funds from her.

In February 2015, Keough agreed to the entry of a consent judgment in partial settlement of the claims against him. Entered by the Court on February 20, 2015, the consent judgment ordered Keough to disgorge $368,430 in illegal commissions, to pay an additional $44,500 in interest and permanently enjoined him from violating Section 15(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act") and Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933 ("Securities Act"). In a related action, the Commission issued an Order on March 3, 2015, barring Kevin Keough from certain parts of the securities industry, with the right to apply for reentry to the industry after three years.

As part of the February 2015 consent judgment, the Commission and Kevin Keough agreed that the Court should decide whether to impose a civil penalty on him. After briefing and presentation of the evidence by both sides, the Court ruled on August 5, 2015 that Kevin Keough should pay a civil penalty in the amount of $50,000. As a result, on August 12, 2015, the Court supplemented its judgment to impose the additional $50,000 civil penalty upon Kevin Keough.

The Commission previously obtained final judgments by consent against Inofin's former executives Michael J. Cuomo of Plymouth, Massachusetts, Kevin Mann, Sr. of Marshfield, Massachusetts and Melissa George of Duxbury, Massachusetts and against another Inofin sales agent, David Affeldt of Potomac, Maryland. The judgments ordered Cuomo, George, Mann, and Affeldt to pay disgorgement and civil penalties and permanently enjoined them from violating the Exchange Act and the Securities Act. The SEC's action remains pending against bankrupt Inofin.