Jamey Denise Jackson, 62, served as president of Semisub, Inc., a Hawaii-based company she formed with her then-husband Curtiss Edward Jackson, who was Semisub’s CEO. The company was built around a single product: a partially submersible vessel with a transparent hull, called Semisub One, that the Jacksons said would carry tourists on commercial sightseeing tours to view marine life off the coast of Hawaii. From 2017 through at least February 2022, Denise Jackson, her husband, and the company raised approximately $4.7 million from over one hundred individuals across the United States through the fraudulent offer and sale of securities in Semisub. The pitch was that investor funds would construct the initial vessel and then finance the construction and sale of additional vessels. For years, the Jacksons told investors that Semisub One was “weeks” or “months” away from beginning operations. It never carried a paying passenger. On July 16, 2026, the SEC filed proposed final judgments resolving its case against Semisub and Denise Jackson.
The SEC’s complaint, filed in August 2022, alleged that despite telling investors their money would build vessels, the defendants misappropriated a significant portion of the funds for personal expenses. Denise Jackson consented to a final judgment permanently enjoining her from violating the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act and Exchange Act, and ordering her to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest of $1,901,762, deemed satisfied by the restitution order in the parallel criminal case. Denise Jackson pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, and on August 7, 2025, was sentenced to 24 months in prison and two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $16,745,132.58. Her ex-husband Curtiss Jackson was sentenced to 13 years.
Mansions, a Mercedes, Psychics, and Marijuana Paid for With Investor Money
The misappropriation detailed in the criminal case is among the more unusual in recent securities fraud enforcement. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, the Jacksons diverted investor funds to finance luxury residences in Hawaii and California, a Mercedes-Benz automobile, luxury vacations, and, notably, psychics and marijuana. The couple spent more than $4.8 million on personal expenses including vacations, cash withdrawals, psychics, cannabis, luxury homes, travel, credit card bills, and the Mercedes. The money that investors were told would build a fleet of tour submarines was, according to prosecutors, funding the Jacksons’ lifestyle, including payments to psychics and purchases of recreational drugs. The gap between the represented use of funds, constructing a novel tourism vessel, and the actual use of funds, mansions and psychics, is the core of both the SEC civil case and the criminal prosecution.
To perpetuate the fraud and solicit additional funds, the defendants repeatedly lied to investors about the status of the vessel’s construction and about business relationships that did not exist. They told investors that Semisub had entered into agreements or developed relationships with government agencies and a private investment firm to build and sell a fleet of Semisubs worth tens of millions of dollars. Those agreements were fabricated. The claimed government relationships and the private investment firm deals were, according to the evidence at trial, inventions designed to make the venture appear credible and imminent, encouraging existing investors to contribute more and new investors to join a project that was always described as nearly complete but never was.
A Fugitive Husband, a Sopranos Death Threat, and a Flight to International Waters
The criminal case against Curtiss Jackson took several dramatic turns that illustrate the lengths to which the scheme’s operators went to evade accountability. During the investigation, Curtiss Jackson sent a death threat to Denise Jackson in the form of a link to an online video titled “Death of FBI Informants,” containing graphic clips from The Sopranos television series depicting the deaths of characters who had cooperated with the FBI. Then, on the day before his bond revocation hearing, Curtiss Jackson attempted to flee United States territorial waters aboard the Semisub One itself, the very vessel that was subject to criminal forfeiture proceedings, after loading it with groceries and withdrawing $30,000 in cash. He was intercepted and arrested by the U.S. Marshals and the U.S. Coast Guard on January 6, 2023. He was convicted by a jury on all counts on May 9, 2024. Denise Jackson had pleaded guilty in January 2023.
A $16.7M Restitution Order and a Vessel That Never Sailed Commercially
The financial scope of the scheme, as reflected in the criminal restitution order of $16,745,132.58 against Denise Jackson, exceeds the $4.7 million figure in the SEC complaint, reflecting the full decade-long span of the fraud and the total harm to the hundreds of investors involved across both the SEC’s identified period and the broader criminal timeline. Prosecutors described the scheme in their sentencing memorandum as pre-planned grift that victimized ordinary citizens, often retirees or people saving for retirement, who were sold the dream of an exciting Hawaii tourism company. The 72-foot, 149-passenger Semisub One took more than a decade to build and, according to the reporting on the case, never entered commercial service. Denise Jackson’s SEC disgorgement of $1,901,762 is deemed satisfied by the criminal restitution order. The litigation remains ongoing as to Curtiss Jackson on the SEC side.
Conclusion
Jamey Denise Jackson and her husband spent more than a decade telling investors their tour submarine was weeks away from launching. They raised $4.7 million on that promise, fabricated government contracts and investment deals to keep the money coming, and spent it on mansions, a Mercedes, luxury vacations, psychics, and marijuana. The vessel never carried a paying tourist. Her husband threatened her with a Sopranos death-threat video and tried to sail the forfeited submarine to international waters the day before a court hearing. He got 13 years. She got 24 months and a $16.7 million restitution order. The dream they sold was a lie they told over and over, for their own benefit.
