BATON ROUGE - Radio show host and political candidate Hollis Day Jr. is the target of a federal lawsuit filed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

The feds allege Day used his position as a radio host "Sage Money Radio" to reach a larger audience and solicit investors. The feds say he sold Oil and Gas securities to retail investors and in return received commissions. A lawsuit filed by the SEC last year says "many of the individuals to whom Day sold the Oil and Gas Securities lost much, if not all, of their investments.

Eric Bertolet is one of those investors who first met Day when he had a radio show too.

"I've lost many thousands in other investments through Hollis," Bertolet said. "I met the principals through Hollis at Juban's through other seminars per the SEC complaint."

Bertolet said he's been in communication with the SEC about the shady dealings.

"I made my concerns known to the SEC, and they responded," Bertolet said.

Day denied any wrongdoing and said all of these allegations are politically motivated due to his conservative stance on things.

"When you add the fact that I'm an outspoken Christian, love the oil and gas industry and am a critic of the Biden administration...I think it gets attention," Day said.

Day is accused of receiving $869,796 in commissions from the Oil and Gas Securities from 2016 until 2020. The feds claim Day broke federal securities laws by actively participating in the offer and sale of securities that were not registered with the commission and acting as a broker in the offer and sale of the Oil and Gas Securities despite the fact that he was not registered with the commission.

"There's a lot of things lately that the federal government claims that is not true," Day said.

The WBRZ Investigative Unit questioned him about the commissions that the feds claimed he earned.

"It's not quite that high. It was a lot of money I made, 1099 money. That didn't all go into my pocket. There's taxes and expenses," he said.

Day said during the interview that he gets paid commissions to sell life insurance, but didn't do anything wrong.

The feds maintain he had a special link that he used that he could provide to prospective investors who wanted additional information or who were ready to purchase the securities. The link allowed the companies to track the source of incoming investors to calculate Day's commissions.

"There's been no investors complaining about me," Day maintained. "Chris, would you admit to something you didn't do? Someone who admits to something they didn't do is someone who is not one of principle, and that's not who I am."

Day said he took a leave of absence from his radio show position as he runs for District 66 State Representative. Four other republicans are also vying for that position.