Update (Aug. 13 at 2:20 am UTC): This article has been up to date to mirror {that a} sentencing listening to was scheduled for Tuesday.
Two Estonian nationals who co-founded the cryptocurrency mining service HashFlare are scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday after pleading responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud as a part of a plea take care of prosecutors.
In a Monday submitting, US prosecutors pushed again towards most of the claims made by legal professionals for HashFlare co-founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin of their sentencing advice.
The two males requested time served, whereas legal professionals representing the US authorities have requested the decide to condemn them to 10 years in jail, arguing “the hurt HashFlare’s victims suffered couldn’t be extra actual.”
“[…] Defendants argue HashFlare’s victims suffered no loss primarily based partially on [an expert opinion] and partially on meager makes an attempt to discredit their victims’ statements,” stated prosecutors. “However […] the skilled opinion is predicated considerably on supposed HashFlare investor earnings – information that Defendants admitted of their plea agreements was fabricated – whereas Defendants’ personal figures considerably help the victims’ narratives they search to discredit.”
The HashFlare co-founders claimed in earlier court docket filings that customers had not suffered any important losses after they returned $400 million in crypto to customers and agreed to forfeit pursuits in property frozen by the US authorities in 2022. Prosecutors stated of their Monday submitting that these arguments have been “unsuitable” and that HashFlare primarily operated as a “fraud, a Ponzi Scheme.”
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Indicted in October 2022, Potapenko and Turogin have been arrested and held in Estonia earlier than their extradition to the US in May 2024. Both have been free on bail since July 2024 and pleaded responsible to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in February.
Orders to “self-deport” earlier than sentencing
During court docket proceedings, the HashFlare co-founders acquired letters from the US Department of Homeland Security directing them to “depart the United States” as a part of the Trump administration’s push for mass deportations. It’s unclear whether or not the decide will contemplate their immigration standing at sentencing.
Cointelegraph reached out to Potapenko’s counsel for touch upon the sentencing listening to however had not acquired a response on the time of publication.
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