UPDATE 2-SEC eyes new charges in ICP fraud case

* SEC: ICP founder transferred homes on learning suit risk

* SEC seeks permission from judge to file new charges (Adds details from filing, background)

NEW YORK May 5 (Reuters) - U.S. securities regulators say they want to bring new charges contending that the founder of ICP Asset Management LLC improperly transferred homes he owned shortly after learning he was to be accused of fraud.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said that Thomas Priore, 43, transferred ownership of homes in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Chappaqua, New York, only "days" after learning the agency planned to sue him.

Last June, the SEC brought a civil case accusing ICP and Priore of fraudulently managing four multi-billion dollar collateralized debt obligations, known as Triaxx, for their own benefit. It said this caused investors to lose millions of dollars when mortgage values collapsed in 2007.

CDOs are pools of securities such as mortgage-linked assets.

In papers filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the SEC proposed adding charges against Priore's wife Lori, 43, and his friend Bertrand Smyers, 42.

The new complaint would seek to void the March 2010 transfers of the homes for no more than $10 each to three trusts that the Priores and Smyers control.

According to the SEC, these transfers were fraudulent and unjustly enriched the Priores and Smyers with property funded with proceeds from the fraud.

The SEC said it was asking permission from U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to file the new charges, saying it learned for the first time about the home transfers on March 11.

A lawyer for ICP and Thomas Priore did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A man who answered the phone at Smyers' home in Shaker Heights, Ohio declined to comment.

Priore, a former Harvard University football quarterback, founded ICP in 2004. He has been defending himself against the original SEC charges.

The case against ICP and Priore was the first by the SEC targeting a CDO collateral manager, and was part of a broader probe into the collapse of the value of mortgage securities in the financial crisis.

The case is SEC v. ICP Asset Management LLC et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 10-04791. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Bernard Orr)