Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Lawyer who laundered $400M from OneCoin rip-off denied new trial: Report

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The lawyer liable for laundering $400 million from the OneCoin fraud has been denied a movement searching for a brand new trial, regardless of a prosecution witness having perjured themselves within the trial in opposition to him in 2019.

In line with a Sept. 18 report from Bloomberg, 54-year-old lawyer Mark Scott argued that he didn’t know OneCoin was a fraudulent operation on the time and shouldn’t be charged for his position in establishing the fund that laundered cash for OneCoin founder Ruja “Cryptoqueen” Ignatov. 

Scott was discovered responsible of cash laundering and financial institution fraud conspiracy in November 2019, with prosecutors discovering that Scott earned a complete of $50 million via a fraudulent fund that processed funds and transactions siphoned from the OneCoin scheme.

His authorized group has been searching for a brand new trial since, citing a false testimony from a authorities witness within the unique trial. 

Nonetheless, throughout a Sept. 18 listening to, United States District Choose Edgardo Ramos denied the attorneys’ request for a brand new trial, saying he was unconvinced that “an harmless individual could have been convicted” regardless of the false testimony delivered in the course of the 2019 trial by Konstantin Ignatov.

Konstantin Ignatov was a authorities witness who admitted to aiding his sister Ruja within the OneCoin fraud.

Attorneys for Scott stated that they’d enchantment the choice, claiming that his shopper was “disillusioned that the court docket didn’t grant a brand new trial given the undisputed proof that the Authorities’s sole cooperating witness perjured himself.”

Associated: OneCoin head of compliance going through 40-year sentence after US extradition

OneCoin was launched in 2014, and marketed itself as a cryptocurrency that was comparable in construction to Bitcoin. Nonetheless, it was later revealed to be a pyramid scheme that functioned by luring in new customers with fictitious claims and guarantees of excessive future earnings.

The prosecution claimed that Scott used the $50 million in proceeds from OneCoin to finance an costly way of life, shopping for a swathe of luxurious items together with quite a few multimillion-dollar properties, watches, sports activities automobiles and a 17 meter yacht.

On Sept. 12, Ramos sentenced OneCoin’s co-founder Karl Greenwood to twenty years in jail in the US, after he was discovered responsible of a litany of prices together with fraud and cash laundering.

Ruja Ignatov has not been seen since October 2017 and is presently on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Ten Most Wished Listing.

Large Questions: What’s with all of the crypto deaths?