Antonia Perez Hernandez, a promoter of the cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme Forcount who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, has been sentenced to more than two years in prison.
In a Jan. 27 hearing at the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Judge Analisa Torres — the same judge presiding over the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Ripple Labs — sentenced Hernandez to 30 months for her involvement in the crypto scheme. Hernandez pleaded guilty to working with her co-conspirators to steal roughly $8.4 million from investors between 2017 and 2021 by promoting crypto trading and mining on Forcount, promising significant returns.
“Ms. Hernandez sold valueless coins,” said Judge Torres before sentencing the Forcount promoter, according to Inner City Press. “There is some evidence she’s done it since.”
Hernandez reportedly apologized to “those who lost money” as a result of her actions. The project’s senior promoter, Juan Tacuri, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in October 2024, while Nestor Nuñez, an indicted individual who pleaded guilty roughly the same time as Hernandez, was sentenced to four years in November.
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According to the US Justice Department, the Forcount founders and promoters falsely claimed to victims that profits from the firm’s crypto trading and mining operations would result in doubling the return on their investments within six months. Prosecutors alleged that the defendants instead used victims’ funds to pay other victims without any actual crypto mining or investing.
New direction at SDNY under Donald Trump’s US Attorney?
The sentencing hearing was one of the first legal actions taken in a criminal case involving crypto since the departure of SDNY Attorney Damian Williams, who resigned in December 2024. A prosecutor with the Attorney’s Office reportedly said in November after the US election that authorities planned to devote fewer resources to bringing cases involving cryptocurrency-related crimes.
US President Donald Trump said in November that he intended to nominate former SEC Chair and Wall Street insider Jay Clayton to replace Williams. Since leaving his position in the US government in 2020, Clayton has worked as an adviser to the digital assets management platform Fireblocks.
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