A federal judge sentenced a lawyer responsible for money laundering through the OneCoin crypto scheme to 10 years in prison following a Jan. 25 hearing.
According to reporting from Inner City Press on Jan. 25, Judge Edgardo Ramos of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sentenced Mark Scott to 10 years behind bars for his role in laundering millions of dollars through OneCoin. The lawyer was convicted of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in November 2019 and has been awaiting sentencing.
Prosecutors pushed for Scott to receive a minimum sentence of 17 years, while his legal team recommended only five years in prison. He reportedly expressed sympathy for OneCoin’s victims before being sentenced.
Scott: I have sympathy for OneCoin's victims .
— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 25, 2024
Judge Ramos: I sentence you to ten years
Scott worked with OneCoin by laundering funds at the direction of “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova. She co-founded the crypto firm with Karl Sebastian Greenwood in 2014. Although implicated in the OneCoin scheme, Ignatova remained at large at the time of publication.
Related: OneCoin: A deep dive into crypto’s most notorious Ponzi scheme
Greenwood was sentenced to 20 years on fraud and money laundering charges in September 2023 and ordered to pay $300 million in restitution to OneCoin victims. Irinia Dilkinska, the former chief compliance officer at OneCoin, pleaded guilty to two felony counts in November 2023, with sentencing scheduled for February.
Scott’s lawyers reportedly said they intended to request bail pending an appeal of the sentencing decision. The OneCoin lawyer is one of many figures involved in crypto firms to potentially face years in prison for their alleged roles in money laundering or fraud schemes, including former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky.
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