Trust is the foundation of the financial advisory business. When Eliseo Prisno, also known as Jojo Prisno, founded P/E Capital Investment Management Partners in Chicago in 2010, he built it on a particular kind of trust, the kind that forms within a community. Born in the Philippines and fluent in Tagalog, Waray, and Cebuano, Prisno positioned P/E Capital as a firm serving Filipino American clients in the Chicago area and Overseas Filipino Workers abroad. He wrote a monthly financial column in Pinoy Newsmagazine, a Filipino American publication reaching more than 10,000 households across northeastern Illinois. He was Vice President of the Filipino Association of Southern Ohio.
His clients came to him through community networks and cultural familiarity. Between February 2019 and July 2023, he used that access to charge more than 220 of those client accounts approximately $2.4 million in quarterly fees they had never authorized and were never told about, in some cases billing them at rates exceeding 7 percent annually against a stated advisory fee of 2 to 2.4 percent. The SEC filed charges on July 3, 2025. Judgments were entered against both Prisno and P/E Capital on March 10 and March 26, 2026.
How Prisno Set Up the Scheme During Client Onboarding
The fraud was not improvised. It was built into the process by which Prisno brought clients on board. When a new client opened a brokerage account through P/E Capital, Prisno and his team created the client’s username, password, and security questions for the brokerage’s online platform themselves. Some clients subsequently changed their passwords. Many did not. Those who kept the original credentials gave Prisno ongoing access to their accounts without knowing it.
At one brokerage, the firm’s system allowed advisers to submit invoices for additional fees subject to a cap that the client had pre-authorized. Prisno exploited that system by secretly logging into client accounts and resetting the “Quarterly Fee Cap” upward, without the account holder’s knowledge, before submitting invoices at the higher level. At a second brokerage, the scheme operated differently: P/E Capital provided the custodian with client contact information that the firm controlled, including phone numbers and email addresses routed to devices Prisno’s team managed. When the brokerage sent multi-factor authentication codes to verify account activity, those codes went to Prisno, not the client. He bypassed the security layer entirely and approved the fees from within the client’s own account.
Filipino Clients, Community Trust, and Fees Tripling What Was Agreed
The SEC’s complaint identified the client base explicitly. Many of the more than 220 affected accounts belonged to individuals of Filipino descent, living either in the United States or in the Philippines. Several were Overseas Filipino Workers, a community Prisno actively cultivated. As recently as May 2025, just weeks before charges were filed, a news release attributed to P/E Capital promoted an OFW investment programme, with Prisno quoted saying he wanted to allow overseas workers a long-term investment they could enjoy after their time abroad.
The financial impact on those clients was material. P/E Capital’s stated advisory fee ranged from 2 to 2.4 percent of assets under management. Some client accounts were ultimately billed at rates more than double or triple that amount, with certain accounts averaging over 7 percent annually. The $2.4 million in unauthorised charges does not include the standard fees clients had actually agreed to pay. During the fraud period, Prisno transferred at least $2.9 million from P/E Capital’s business accounts into his personal checking account. That money funded his personal expenses.
Ashtree Block Ventures and a Shell Company Filed with Zero Clients
The fee scheme was not Prisno’s only regulatory deception. Between 2022 and 2024, while the billing fraud was still running, he attempted to register a separate company he controlled, Ashtree Block Ventures LLC, with the SEC as an internet investment adviser. The registration forms he filed claimed the firm had $5 million in assets under management and 94 clients. According to the SEC’s complaint, Ashtree Block Ventures was not operational at the time of the filing. It had zero clients and zero assets. The SEC alleged Prisno filed the forms because he hoped the agency’s approval would help him attract investors and clients to the new venture. Ashtree Block Ventures is affiliated with Prisno’s other entity, Ashtree Investment X, which he describes on P/E Capital’s website as a PECADO portal focused on real estate tokenization.
Prisno’s background gave his credentials apparent depth. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and a Master’s degree in Engineering from the University of the Philippines, and studied Management and Finance at Indiana Wesleyan University. Before founding P/E Capital, he worked at Merrill Lynch’s Global Wealth Management Group in Cincinnati from 2007 to 2009 and at Edward Jones. His FINRA CRD number is 4934789. As of early 2026, his LinkedIn profile lists him as active in the Alternative Investments eXchange and P/E Capital DAO LLC.
The Judgments Entered in March 2026 and What Remains to Be Determined
The SEC’s complaint, filed July 3, 2025 in the Northern District of Illinois, charged both Prisno and P/E Capital with violating the antifraud provisions of Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Without admitting or denying the allegations, both consented to judgments entered on March 10 and March 26, 2026. Both are permanently enjoined from future violations of the Advisers Act antifraud provisions. Disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties have been imposed on each defendant but the specific amounts will be determined by the court on motion of the SEC. Prisno additionally faces a conduct-based injunction, the duration of which will also be set by the court, barring him from acting as or associating with any broker, dealer, or investment adviser. The litigation is being conducted by Jonathan Polish and Alyssa Qualls of the SEC’s Chicago Regional Office, and Daniel Griffin of the Division of Enforcement’s Asset Management Unit.
Conclusion
Eliseo Prisno built P/E Capital on community access. He spoke his clients’ languages, wrote their financial column, and set their passwords. Then he used those passwords to enter their accounts, reset fee caps they never saw, and approve charges they never agreed to, routing security codes meant to protect them to devices he controlled. The judgments entered in March 2026 close the consent phase. The dollar amounts Prisno will ultimately owe remain to be decided by the court. The clients whose fees were tripled without their knowledge are still waiting for the full reckoning.
