Christopher “Aaron” Novinger of Burleson, Texas, pedals a custom bright blue human-powered velomobile, marketed as the weirdest bike in America, two thousand miles from the Dallas-Fort Worth area to the steps of the United States Capitol. He has now done it three times. The ride is called Pedaling Against Ponzis, and its purpose is to raise awareness for victims of financial fraud and to campaign for IRS Form 4684 Section C, a provision allowing fraud victims to claim up to a 95 percent income credit on their losses. His wife Rebecca Novinger runs the logistics, safety, and national outreach from their home office. They collect signatures at PonziRelief.org. A Ponzi scheme is a financial hurricane, Novinger has said, and Form 4684 Section C is the rainbow after the hurricane. He launched the third ride in June 2026. Roughly two months later, on August 31, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued him, alleging that he had spent years soliciting investors, including sixteen of his own retirement planning clients, into offerings of tax liens that were never purchased.
The other defendant is David T. Gilchrist, an attorney in Grand Prairie, Texas. According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in the Northern District of Texas, Gilchrist raised more than $1.85 million from at least 22 investors across four states in four separate offerings between March 2021 and October 2025. He told some investors the money would advance settlement payments to class action plaintiffs and others that it would buy tax liens on properties with delinquent taxes. The complaint states he never bought a lien and never advanced a settlement, and that he forged documents, fabricated an account statement, spent investor money on himself, and made Ponzi-like payments to earlier investors. Both men are charged with violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed parallel criminal charges against Gilchrist. Neither man has publicly responded to the allegations, and press reports noted Novinger could not be reached for comment. None of the allegations have been tested in court.
Guaranteed, Safe as CDs, and Federally Insured
Novinger has been here before. On May 11, 2015, the SEC sued him, Brady J. Speers, and their firm Novers Financial in the Northern District of Texas. Both men lived in Mansfield and hosted a financial radio show. The complaint alleged that between 2012 and 2014 they sold approximately $4.3 million in life settlement interests to 26 investors while telling customers the products were guaranteed, as safe as certificates of deposit, and federally insured. None of that was accurate. Life settlements are bets on the payouts of insurance policies held by other people, and they are generally restricted to investors meeting income or net worth thresholds.
To clear those thresholds, according to the SEC, the two men gave prospective investors a net worth calculator that counted money the investors had not yet received. One couple’s non-homestead assets ballooned from $263,000 to nearly $1.5 million once the calculator folded in twenty years of anticipated Social Security and retirement income. In 2016 Novinger agreed to a bar from associating with any broker, dealer, or investment adviser, docketed as Administrative File No. 3-17325, and to pay $349,478. That bar was still in effect throughout the period covered by the current complaint, and the SEC alleges his conduct violated it.
Six Months Without a Single Lien, and He Kept Selling
The heart of the case against Novinger is what he is alleged to have known. For months he repeatedly demanded that Gilchrist produce proof the tax liens had actually been bought. Gilchrist never supplied it. In a November 2023 voicemail quoted in the filing, Novinger said they were six months into doing tax liens and he did not think Gilchrist had given them a single one. He kept selling. In a text to Gilchrist he wrote that he had tons more coming. The SEC’s position is that he continued to play an indispensable role in the offerings long after the evidence he had asked for repeatedly failed to appear.
He also told at least two investors that he had personally invested in the third offering. According to the complaint, he had not. Eighteen investors put roughly $1.3 million into that offering. The sixteen retirement planning clients he brought in had come to him for advice on protecting money they had finished earning. The complaint notes, as evidence bearing on his understanding of what he was selling, that Novinger organizes an annual ride for Ponzi scheme victims and has discussed Ponzi schemes on his podcast.
$14,131 in Commissions and a Relief Defendant Who Is Not Accused
Rebecca Novinger is named in the complaint as a relief defendant. The designation carries no allegation of wrongdoing and exists so that a court can order the return of money connected to an alleged fraud. The SEC states that $14,131 in commissions intended for her husband was routed to her account and that she had no legitimate claim to it. That is the entirety of the claim against her. She is otherwise known publicly as the person who runs the operational side of Pedaling Against Ponzis, coordinating a two thousand mile route, a support van, and a national outreach campaign while her husband rides.
The Gym in Mansfield
Gilchrist’s conduct as the scheme came apart is documented with a specificity that suggests investigators had his records. At one point he sent a message explaining that he was in Tennessee recovering from emergency surgery. The complaint states that two hours before writing it he had been at his gym in Mansfield. The criminal charges against him reportedly include forged deeds and witness tampering. Forging a deed is a category beyond misrepresenting an investment, because it means manufacturing a document that purports to convey an interest in real property.
The recovery numbers show where investors stand. As of May 13, 2026, investors in the third offering had recovered about $637,881 of the $1,298,076 they contributed. In the first offering, one investor who put in $220,000 has received $40,000 back. In a structure where money circulates between investors rather than being generated by any underlying asset, partial recoveries frequently consist of other investors’ principal, which means the final accounting of who lost what typically waits for a receiver or a court.
Conclusion
Aaron Novinger tells fraud victims there is hope. He rides two thousand miles in a blue velomobile to the Capitol to tell them about a tax provision that can return most of what they lost, and his wife runs the campaign from home. He was barred from the securities industry in 2016 after selling life settlements he called guaranteed, safe as CDs, and federally insured, qualifying buyers with a calculator that counted Social Security they had not yet collected. The SEC now says that during the years he was campaigning for Ponzi victims he was steering his own retirement clients into tax liens that were never bought, six months after telling a colleague he had not seen a single one, while telling investors he had put his own money in when he had not. David Gilchrist, who took the money, faces criminal charges that include forging deeds. The third ride left Dallas in June. The lawsuit arrived in August.
