On August 25, Kan Nawaday, Steven Swaney, and Eva-Maria Ghelardi published “Traditional Venue Theories May Not Encompass Crypto Fraud” in Law360. The following is an excerpt:
On May 23, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York overturned a jury verdict against Mango Markets trader Avraham Eisenberg, granting a motion for judgment of acquittal based on venue deficiencies and insufficient evidence. Specifically, the court found in U.S. v. Eisenberg that the government had not sufficiently linked Eisenberg's manipulative trading conduct to New York and had failed to prove a false statement to support a conviction for wire fraud.
The significance of this decision cannot be overstated. Courts rarely grant Rule 29 motions overturning a jury verdict, especially on venue grounds. This is especially the case considering that federal prosecutors need only prove venue by a preponderance of the evidence—whereas the other elements of an offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The decision highlights the challenges of crypto industry-related prosecutions in the decentralized finance space, and will no doubt curtail law enforcement's often overly expansive view of jurisdiction and venue.
The evidence at trial showed that, while operating from Puerto Rico, Eisenberg undertook a scheme to defraud Mango Markets of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.
Click here to read the article.