The SEC says a woman who began as a nanny for a venture capitalist’s two young children later gained control over fund administration and allegedly moved about $1.28 million of investor money into her own accounts.
The complaint, filed in federal court in New Jersey on Sept. 18, says the funds raised about $28.7 million from at least 85 mostly high-net-worth investors and family offices between April 2023 and March 2025. The venture firms are not named, but the SEC says the two firms are based in Montana.
According to regulators, Ellen Polcari started out nannying in late 2014 and was later brought into the firm as an 'executive assistant.' Over time, her role expanded to include sending offering documents and wire instructions, tracking subscription agreements, and wiring capital to portfolio companies.
By April 2023, the SEC says she became the sole signatory on a new fund’s bank account. On the application, she allegedly described herself as a 'Partner with Control of the Entity' and an 80% owner of the fund, without the owner’s knowledge. The SEC also claims neither the VC owner nor the co-owner had access to or signatory authority on the account.
Regulators say Polcari listed the fund’s mailing address as her home. In 2024, the firm’s Form ADV identified her as 'Controller' and a 'Regulatory Contact Person.' When the owner opened a second VC firm in the summer of 2024, the SEC says Polcari handled the filings, opened more bank accounts, and again named herself as the beneficial owner for some of them.
The SEC alleges the money started moving out almost as soon as it came in. One fund received its first $250,000 investment on Oct. 1, 2024, and within a day Polcari allegedly moved $28,000 to her own account. Two days later, after the same fund received another $800,000, regulators say she moved $97,500 over the next three weeks.
The SEC says about $768,000 from that fund allegedly went to Polcari and her bills, including about $131,000 in online-gambling expenses paid directly from the fund’s account. By December, the fund did not have enough capital to make its planned portfolio-company investment, and the SEC alleges Polcari moved nearly $1 million out of four other funds to cover the gap.
The complaint also says she forged the owner’s Docusign e-signature to transfer portfolio company shares to her business, Forks Up LLC, and sold most of the stock for $56,000. In late February 2025, after the SEC began probing the firm, Polcari was fired. On March 30, the SEC says she called the owner and admitted to some of it.
The market lesson is plain. Capital rewards clear controls, not blind trust. When one person can route the wires, sign the account, and touch the paperwork, the taxpayer is not the only one exposed to bad governance — investors are too. In a system built on private capital, the paper trail has to be tighter than the friendships.
There is nothing free-market about weak internal controls or investor money drifting into gambling accounts. The real cost is not just the alleged theft. It is the erosion of trust that every honest fund manager must now overcome.
