A federal judge in New York has signed off on a settlement resolving civil fraud claims against one of three men accused of secretly seizing control of a small Santa Ana, California company and using it to fleece retail investors out of millions of dollars. Brian Keasberry agreed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in penalties and accept a lifetime ban from serving as an officer or director of any public company, closing out his piece of a scheme that federal regulators say ran for roughly four years and generated approximately $5 million in illicit profits for its three participants.
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a final consent judgment against Keasberry on August 20, resolving the case against him individually while litigation continues against his two co-defendants, according to a report from hannahhowell.com. Keasberry, described in the case as a Nevada-based defendant, helped New York's Jonathan Farber and British Columbia, Canada's Aarif Jamani gain control of County Line Energy Inc., a small California-based public company, and a large portion of its publicly traded stock, per the same report. Keasberry consented to the judgment subject to court approval and settled the SEC's claims against him without admitting or denying the underlying allegations.
How the Scheme Allegedly Worked
County Line Energy, which traded under the ticker CYLC on OTC Link, described its business as manufacturing and selling self-contained hydroponic systems for growing plants, vegetables, and cannabis, according to The Law Offices of Destiny Aigbe PLLC. Before the scheme launched in 2018, public trading in the stock was virtually nonexistent, with minimal or zero daily share volume, according to a filing described by SEC.gov in its litigation release. Farber and Jamani allegedly placed handpicked figureheads in County Line Energy's management to create the appearance of a functioning company while quietly consolidating control behind the scenes, per hannahhowell.com's account of the case.
According to SEC filings, Farber funded a $10,020 payment in March 2018 to an associate who became County Line Energy's new CEO, funneled through his Wyoming entity Wexford Industries Ltd., just six days before the company issued 100 million shares for $10,000 that concentrated nearly 98% of outstanding stock in that figurehead's name. The Law Offices of Destiny Aigbe PLLC further details how Farber and Jamani then created the illusion of active trading: Farber allegedly used accounts belonging to his former girlfriend, current girlfriend, and a longtime associate to buy stock, while Jamani sold shares from an offshore brokerage nominee account, effectively trading with themselves to generate artificial volume before the promotional dumping began.
Retail Investors Bought In as Promoters Cashed Out
Blue Diamond Equities Inc. and Black Ridge Holdings Inc., companies Keasberry operated, funded an online promotional campaign touting County Line Energy stock, according to hannahhowell.com's reporting on the case. The defendants allegedly concealed that they had paid for the promotions, that they controlled the company, and that they were selling freely tradable stock into the demand those promotions created. Retail investors reportedly bought County Line Energy shares at inflated prices as a result, unaware of the hidden hands behind the campaign.
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged all three men in January 2024, with the case, formally SEC v. Farber et al., assigned to U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl and Magistrate Judge Gary Stein, according to CaseMine. The SEC's litigation against Farber and Jamani remains ongoing and is managed by trial attorneys out of the agency's Boston Regional Office, the same office that originally brought the civil fraud complaint in January 2024, per SEC.gov's most recent litigation release.
What Keasberry's Settlement Requires
Under the final judgment, Keasberry must pay $37,500 in disgorgement, a $37,500 civil penalty, and $12,864 in prejudgment interest, according to hannahhowell.com. The judgment also enjoins him from further violations of Sections 5(a), 5(c), and 17(a) of the Securities Act, as well as Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. Separately from the monetary terms, Keasberry is now permanently barred from serving as an officer or director of any SEC-reporting public company and from participating in future penny stock offerings.
Those two sanctions carry distinct legal weight. An officer-and-director bar permanently prohibits an individual from serving in executive leadership at SEC-reporting public companies, while a penny stock bar separately prevents participation in offerings of microcap equities trading below $5 per share, according to the Hamilton & Associates Law Group. Both remedies are authorized under federal securities law specifically to protect public markets from repeat offenders.
Jamani's Separate Trouble in Canada
While the SDNY case against Farber and Jamani continues, Jamani faces a parallel enforcement track north of the border. In February 2024, he agreed to a $40,000 penalty and a four-year public market ban with the British Columbia Securities Commission after admitting he violated a cease trade order by trading 18.7 million County Line Energy shares through two Canadian numbered companies, 0985358 B.C. Ltd. and 1207124 B.C. Ltd., according to Business in Vancouver.
That was not the end of it. In June 2025, the BCSC issued a new notice of hearing alleging Jamani sold US$38.1 million in over-the-counter securities without required registration through three controlled entities across five Canadian investment dealers, with a hearing appearance scheduled for September 2025, the outlet reported. The scale of that separate allegation underscores how much broader Jamani's alleged trading activity extended beyond the County Line Energy scheme alone.
A Pattern Regulators Are Watching Nationwide
The County Line Energy case lands amid what federal law enforcement agencies describe as a 330% increase in microcap pump-and-dump reports in recent years, prompting parallel civil forfeiture and criminal enforcement actions targeting fraudulent promoters in over-the-counter markets, as Hoodline has previously reported. Regulators including FINRA have issued heightened warnings about social media and offshore account manipulations feeding this trend, a dynamic the County Line Energy scheme appears to mirror closely with its combination of hidden control, wash trading, and online promotion.
Keasberry's settlement closes his chapter of the case, but the central allegations against Farber and Jamani remain unproven civil claims that neither man has been found liable for in court. The SEC's litigation against them continues in the Southern District of New York, while Jamani separately awaits resolution of the BCSC's administrative proceedings in Canada. For now, the only certainty is what a federal judge put on paper this week: one settled defendant, a permanent exit from public company leadership, and two co-defendants whose cases are far from over.
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