The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) has permanently banned a dentist who got caught up in an alleged Ponzi scheme.

The OSC announced Tuesday that it had reached a settlement agreement with Peter Sbaraglia that will see him permanently banned from trading (except for his RRSP), registration, and serving as a director or officer (except for his dentistry practice company); and, he’s not allowed to provide any money for his wife to trade either.

The commission says that it’s not pursuing any monetary penalties against him because his companies have been put into receivership, at the request of the OSC, in order to try to recover money from them for his investors and creditors. Absent that proceeding, OSC staff “would be seeking significant monetary sanctions”, it says.

As part of the settlement, Sbaraglia acknowledges that, between January 2006 and August 2009, he operated C.O. Capital Growth Inc. (CO), along with Robert Mander, who was also the chief portfolio strategist for CO. The company was used as an investment vehicle to solicit third party investors to invest with Mander, and it raised approximately $21.2 million from investors, mostly friends and family of the Sbaraglias.

Mander operated and owned E.M.B. Asset Group Inc., which, according to the settlement, “operated a fraudulent scheme where, contrary to his promises to investors, including Sbaraglia, to invest their funds, Mander used the funds to pay interest and principal to other investors, also known as a Ponzi scheme.”

Additionally, a portion of the investors’ funds raised by CO weren’t invested in the scheme, instead they were used by CO to repay other investors and to pay for some of his personal expenses. And, Sbaraglia and his wife received over $2 million that Mander told them were profits and dividends earned by them.

“Sbaraglia, through his role in CO and his close involvement with Mander, participated in Mander’s Ponzi scheme in a manner which he ought reasonably to have known perpetrated a fraud on investors,” the settlement says. And, it says that he also misled staff of the commission in its investigation. These actions were contrary to the public interest, it concludes.

Mander committed suicide back in 2010, after the scheme came to light.