2 years ago
A erstwhile lawyer pled blameworthy successful Manhattan national court connected Friday to conspiracy to perpetrate ligament fraud arsenic portion of a strategy to defraud investors who thought they were investing successful bitcoin.
Philip Reichenthal, unneurotic with co-conspirator Randy Craig Levine and respective associates, persuaded victims to nonstop him millions of dollars, saying helium would enactment arsenic an escrow cause to acquisition bitcoin for them. But neither Reichenthal nor his associates ever provided immoderate bitcoin to the investors nor refunded their money.
Reichenthal was arrested connected Sept. 14, 2020, for the crime. The 78-year-old Reichenthal, who was disbarred successful October 2019 successful a Florida court, faces a maximum word of 20 years successful prison. Extradition proceedings against Levine, who’s been connected the tally from U.S. authorities since 2005, are pending.
According to the charges, Reichenthal and Levine engaged successful 2 fraudulent schemes. In the archetypal one, successful 2018, Levine induced a antheral to ligament implicit $3 cardinal to Reichenthal from an over-the-counter crypto broker to money the acquisition of bitcoin, which was ne'er made. In the second, successful 2019, Levine persuaded a Florida antheral to nonstop implicit $2 cardinal to Reichenthal for buying bitcoin, which helium besides ne'er purchased.
The authoritative successful the case, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, said “as a licensed lawyer and escrow agent, Philip Reichenthal was entrusted to support investors’ wealth safe. But arsenic helium admitted today, helium betrayed that spot by siphoning millions of dollars of capitalist money.”
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Nelson Wang is CoinDesk's quality exertion for the East Coast. He holds BTC and ETH supra CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.
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