Robert M. Thompson built a company called the Financial Freedom Foundation, gave it a feel-good nickname, F3 Mastermind, and then used it to defraud investors. He did it so brazenly that when the SEC filed a federal lawsuit, he simply refused to show up, and the court handed down a judgment by default.

A “Mastermind” Who Couldn’t Face a Judge

The SEC filed its initial complaint on May 3, 2024, accusing Thompson and F3 Mastermind of violating some of the most foundational anti-fraud laws in American securities regulation. Those laws exist specifically because ordinary people, people without armies of lawyers and financial advisers, need protection when someone offers them an investment opportunity. Thompson and F3 Mastermind broke every one of them.

The SEC filed an amended complaint on November 11, 2024, presumably after gathering additional evidence. Thompson and F3 Mastermind responded to neither complaint. The court entered a default against them on January 28, 2025, which is the legal equivalent of a defendant saying, “I have nothing to say for myself.” The final judgment came down on August 14, 2025.

The judgment names a third party: Relief Defendant Brandon K. Stucki. In SEC enforcement actions, a “relief defendant” is someone who received money from the scheme without necessarily being charged as a co-fraudster. Stucki’s presence in the case documents signals that the fraud’s proceeds moved beyond Thompson and F3 Mastermind to at least one other person.

Three Laws Broken. Zero Defenses Filed.

The court permanently banned Thompson and F3 Mastermind from violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which is the bedrock anti-fraud provision of American securities law. It prohibits any “device, scheme, or artifice to defraud” in connection with buying or selling securities. Thompson and F3 Mastermind used exactly that.

They were also banned from violating Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, which specifically covers fraud in the offering or sale of securities, including obtaining money through false statements or misleading omissions. This is the law that protects someone who hears a sales pitch from a financial operator and decides to invest based on what they were told.

The third violation involves Sections 206(1) and 206(2) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. These provisions apply specifically to people who hold themselves out as investment advisers, people who are supposed to act in their clients’ best interests. Thompson positioned himself as an adviser, and then defrauded the clients who trusted him in that role.

The Non-Financial Ledger: What Money Can’t Measure

The numbers in this case are real, and they matter. But every dollar Thompson and F3 Mastermind were ordered to return represents a person who handed over their savings to someone they believed was helping them build a better life. The name “Financial Freedom Foundation” was chosen deliberately. Freedom is the pitch. Freedom from debt. Freedom from wage labor. Freedom from the grinding anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck. Thompson sold the dream that working-class people are told to chase, and then he took their money.

The Investment Advisers Act violations are the most intimate of the three charges. When you hire an investment adviser, you are placing your financial future in someone else’s hands. You are saying: I don’t understand all of this, I trust you, please help me. Thompson and F3 Mastermind accepted that trust and broke it deliberately. The law calls this fraud. The people who experienced it call it something worse: betrayal by someone they paid to protect them.

The presence of Relief Defendant Brandon K. Stucki in the court documents tells its own story. Money from the scheme did not stay with Thompson and F3 Mastermind alone. It moved. Someone else received proceeds that came from investors who thought they were building toward retirement, or their children’s education, or a first home. The law treats Stucki as a relief defendant, meaning the court can claw back those funds, but the source of those funds was someone’s real financial loss.

Thompson and F3 Mastermind didn’t just make bad investment calls. The court found that they used “devices, schemes, or artifices to defraud,” that they made “untrue statements of material fact,” and that they deliberately omitted facts that investors needed to make informed decisions. That is a portrait of a calculated operation. It describes people who knew what the truth was, chose to hide it, and profited from the gap between what they said and what was real. The people on the receiving end of that deception made life decisions, financial decisions, based on lies.

Legal Receipts: The Court’s Own Words

These are direct, verbatim passages from the final judgment entered by the court on August 14, 2025. Read them slowly. This is what a federal court determined, on the record, about how Thompson and F3 Mastermind operated.

“to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud”

Final Judgment, Section I(a) — Describing Thompson and F3 Mastermind’s prohibited conduct under Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934

“to make any untrue statement of a material fact or to omit to state a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in the light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading”

Final Judgment, Section I(b) — Describing the fraudulent misrepresentation and omission conduct the court found Thompson and F3 Mastermind committed

“to obtain money or property by means of any untrue statement of a material fact or any omission of a material fact necessary in order to make the statements made, in light of the circumstances under which they were made, not misleading”

Final Judgment, Section II(b) — Describing the conduct prohibited under Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, specifically how Thompson and F3 Mastermind extracted money from investors through deception

“Thompson and F3 Mastermind are jointly and severally liable for disgorgement of $72,946.00, representing net profits gained as a result of the conduct alleged in the Complaint, together with prejudgment interest thereon in the amount of $18,005.00, for a total of $90,951.00.”

Final Judgment, Section IV — The court’s financial accounting of what Thompson and F3 Mastermind gained from defrauding investors

“to employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud any client or prospective client; or to engage in any transaction, practice, or course of business which operates as a fraud or deceit upon any client or prospective client.”

Final Judgment, Section III(a)-(b) — Describing Thompson and F3 Mastermind’s violations of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, the law that governs people who hold themselves out as financial advisers to clients

Societal Impact Mapping

Economic Inequality: How Fraud Punches Down

Investment fraud of this kind does not target the wealthy. Sophisticated institutional investors have legal teams, financial analysts, and due diligence processes. The people who join organizations called the “Financial Freedom Foundation” are people who feel economically trapped and are looking for a way out. They are the people the Investment Advisers Act was written to protect, because they lack the resources and expertise to protect themselves.

The court ordered Thompson and F3 Mastermind to return $72,946 (roughly what a median American worker earns laboring for an entire year) in net profits. That number represents what the scheme cleared after costs. The total losses experienced by investors could be higher, since disgorgement represents profits, not necessarily every dollar taken in. Investors who lost money above and beyond what Thompson profited may never see full recovery.

The civil penalties of $36,000 each ($36,000 is more than a full year of federal minimum wage work at 40 hours a week), totaling $72,000, are paid to the government, not automatically to victims. The court noted that a Fair Fund distribution plan may be proposed, which would direct those penalty dollars back to harmed investors. Whether that happens, and how much each investor recovers, remains an open question in this case.

The broader pattern here is one that repeats across American financial history: operators use the language of empowerment, “financial freedom,” “mastermind,” “foundation,” to target people who are already economically precarious. The branding does double work. It attracts people desperate for financial literacy and independence, and it cloaks the predatory structure underneath a veneer of community and knowledge-sharing. By the time investors realize the pitch was fraudulent, their money is already gone.

The Cost of a Life: What They Made vs. What It Cost

What Now: Who Watches the Watchmen

The People Involved

• Robert M. Thompson: Primary defendant. Permanently enjoined from securities fraud. Ordered to pay $90,951 in disgorgement and interest plus $36,000 in civil penalties.
• The Financial Freedom Foundation / F3 Mastermind: Corporate defendant. Same permanent injunctions. Ordered to pay $36,000 in civil penalties jointly with Thompson on disgorgement, and separately on penalties.
• Brandon K. Stucki: Named as Relief Defendant. Received proceeds from the scheme. His disposition in this case is ongoing.

The Regulators to Watch

• SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission): Brought this case. Responsible for proposing any Fair Fund distribution plan that would return penalty money to investors. Track SEC.gov for updates on this docket.
• DOJ (Department of Justice): Civil penalties ordered here are treated as payments to the government. Watch for any parallel criminal referral, which the source does not confirm but which SEC civil actions sometimes precede.
• CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau): Broadly tracks predatory financial operators targeting consumers. If you encountered F3 Mastermind or similar operations, CFPB accepts public complaints at consumerfinance.gov.

What You Can Do Right Now

If you or someone you know gave money to F3 Mastermind or Robert M. Thompson, contact the SEC directly at sec.gov/tcr to submit a tip or complaint. The court has retained jurisdiction over this case, meaning enforcement is ongoing and victim recovery through a Fair Fund is still possible. Do not wait for someone else to act on your behalf.

Beyond this case: investment fraud targeting people who want financial independence is everywhere right now. It thrives in online communities, “mastermind” groups, and social media. The best protection is community knowledge. Share this investigation. Talk to people in your network about the red flags: promises of outsized returns, vague descriptions of the actual investment, pressure to act fast, and organizations whose names sell freedom rather than explaining their product. Mutual knowledge is free protection against people like Thompson who profit from information asymmetry.