17-1416-cv 

Securities and Exchange Commission v. Hansen

 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 

SUMMARY ORDER 

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A 

SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED 

BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. 

WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY 

MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE 

NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY 

OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 

 At a stated Term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 

Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York on the 

27th day of February, two thousand eighteen. 

Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, 

 ROBERT D. SACK, 

 SUSAN L. CARNEY, 

 Circuit Judges. 

_____________________________________________________ 

UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE 

COMMISSION, 

 Plaintiff-Appellee, 

 v. 17-1416-cv 

RANDAL KENT HANSEN, 

 Defendant-Appellant.

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_____________________________________________________ 

 

Appearing for Appellant: Randal Kent Hansen, pro se, Duluth, MN. 

Appearing for Appellee: Robert B. Stebbins, John W. Avery, Sarah R. Prins, Securities and 

Exchange Commission, Washington, D.C. 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Broderick, 

J.). 

 

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 The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official caption to conform with the above. 
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ON CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, 

AND DECREED that the judgment of said District Court be and it hereby is AFFIRMED. 

 Randal Kent Hansen, proceeding pro se, appeals from the district court’s grant of 

summary judgment to the Securities and Exchange Commission in its civil enforcement action 

against him. The SEC had alleged that Hansen violated numerous securities laws in connection 

with a Ponzi scheme and requested injunctive relief and disgorgement of his ill-gotten gains. 

Hansen was also criminally convicted of, inter alia, conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud 

based on the same underlying facts, and barred through an administrative proceeding from 

further participating in the securities industry. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the 

underlying facts, the procedural history of the case, and the issues on appeal. 

 We review orders granting summary judgment de novo and focus on whether the district 

court properly concluded that there was no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the 

moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Sotomayor v. City of N.Y., 713 F.3d 

163, 164 (2d Cir. 2013). We review a district court’s disgorgement order and grant of injunctive 

relief for abuse of discretion. SEC v. Lorin, 76 F.3d 458, 461-62 (2d Cir. 1996). 

 We affirm the grant of summary judgment to the SEC for substantially the reasons set 

forth in the district court’s opinion of March 31, 2017. The district court correctly ruled that 

Hansen’s criminal conviction and the administrative decision established the elements of the 

charged violations. The court did not exceed the permissible bounds of its discretion in imposing 

remedies because Hansen failed to submit any evidence to rebut the SEC’s reasonable 

approximation of the amount to be disgorged. 

 Hansen first argues that because he was concurrently engaged in a pending bankruptcy 

action, this action and the resulting judgment should have been stayed. His argument is without 

merit. The filing of a bankruptcy petition does not operate as a stay against SEC enforcement 

actions and the SEC may prosecute an action through and including the entry of a money 

judgment against a debtor. See 11 U.S.C. § 362(b)(4); SEC v. Brennan, 230 F.3d 65, 71 (2d Cir. 

2000). The district court could therefore properly hear the SEC’s action against Hansen. 

Moreover, Hansen’s pending 28 U.S.C. § 2255 motion does not warrant a stay: his assertion that 

a decision on the motion will result in the vacatur of his criminal conviction is entirely 

speculative. 

 

 Hansen’s reliance on Honeycutt v. United States, 137 S. Ct. 1626 (2017), is misplaced. 

In Honeycutt, the Supreme Court held that “[f]orfeiture pursuant to [21 U.S.C.] § 853(a)(1) is 

limited to property the defendant himself actually acquired as a result of the crime.” Id. at 1635. 

Honeycutt is silent on the issue of disgorgement, and Hansen’s judgment was not imposed jointly 

and severally. Accordingly, Honeycutt is inapplicable to this case. Moreover, Hansen’s 

disgorgement judgment did not violate double jeopardy. We have held that disgorgement under 

15 U.S.C. § 77v(a) and 15 U.S.C. § 78aa is a nonpunitive remedy, in part because it is designed 

to “ensure that the defendant not profit from his illegal acts,” and thus, the Double Jeopardy 

Clause does not apply to disgorgement orders. SEC v. Palmisano, 135 F.3d 860, 866 (2d Cir. 

1998). 
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 Finally, because this is a civil action, Hansen had no right to counsel. See Berrios v. 

N.Y.C. Hous. Auth., 564 F.3d 130, 134 (2d Cir. 2009). 

 We have considered the remainder of Hansen’s arguments and find them to be without 

merit. Accordingly, the judgmentof the district court hereby is AFFIRMED. 

 FOR THE COURT: 

 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk