A lawyer who is believed to have laundered $400 million from the OneCoin cryptocurrency fraud won’t get a new trial despite lies told on the witness stand by a prosecution witness who is the brother of the so-called “Cryptoqueen” Ruja Ignatova.
Prosecutors claimed Mark Scott, 54, made $50 million for setting up an investment fund that he used to process money that Ignatova, who is on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, took from the $4 billion fraud. Scott claimed at trial that he didn’t know that OneCoin was a fraud.
US District Judge Edgardo Ramos denied Scott’s request for a new trial Monday, ruling that he wasn’t convinced “an innocent person may have been convicted” despite the lies of Konstantin Ignatov, a government witness who admitted he’d aided his sister in the fraud. The judge’s ruling paves the way for Scott to be sentenced.
Furthermore, Scott sought a new trial based on claims of legal mistakes and on evidence that Konstantin Ignatov had given false testimony. However, the judge mentioned that the prosecutors didn’t agree with his lying.
