Share this article
Jury Selection Delayed in Bitcoin Exchange Trial
A federal trial tied to the now-defunct Florida bitcoin exchange Coin.mx has been delayed.
By Stan Higgins
Updated Sep 11, 2021, 1:05 p.m. Published Feb 14, 2017, 1:36 p.m.
Make us preferred on Google
A federal trial tied to the now-defunct Florida bitcoin exchange Coin.mx has been delayed.
Yesterday, the court was set to begin jury selection for the trial of Yuri Lebedev – one of the co-operators of Coin.mx alongside Anthony Murgio, who plead guilty to three charges early last month – and Trevon Gross, a pastor who was accused of helping Coin.mx and its backers to take control of a New Jersey credit union in exchange for bribes. Gross was originally charged last March.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
Don't miss another story.Subscribe to the Crypto Daybook Americas Newsletter today. See all newsletters
Now, according to reports, Judge Alison Nathan has delayed jury selection by a day after the prosecution introduced a new witness, who was said to have information related to Gross’s activities.
Judge Nathan ultimately opted not to allow the witness, punting jury selection to 14th February.
Lebedev, along with Murgio, was initially arrested in mid-2015, accused of running an unlicensed money transmission business in Florida. While related court filings don’t explicitly draw the connection, prosecutors have tied Coin.mx’s actions to a broader cybercriminal scheme involving a series of high-profile hacks in the last several years.
The most notable of these was a breach of Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase, resulting in a data compromise for tens of millions of customer accounts. Prosecutors have also alleged that that Coin.mx functioned as a money conduit for the cybercrime scheme, using the New Jersey credit union – since shuttered by regulators – as a means to discreetly move funds.
It’s not immediately clear when the trial itself will begin. Murgio is expected to face sentencing in June.
Image via Shutterstock
More For You
Pudgy Penguins is building a multi-vertical consumer IP platform — combining phygital products, games, NFTs and PENGU to monetize culture at scale.
What to know:
Pudgy Penguins is emerging as one of the strongest NFT-native brands of this cycle, shifting from speculative “digital luxury goods” into a multi-vertical consumer IP platform. Its strategy is to acquire users through mainstream channels first; toys, retail partnerships and viral media, then onboard them into Web3 through games, NFTs and the PENGU token.
The ecosystem now spans phygital products (> $13M retail sales and >1M units sold), games and experiences (Pudgy Party surpassed 500k downloads in two weeks), and a widely distributed token (airdropped to 6M+ wallets). While the market is currently pricing Pudgy at a premium relative to traditional IP peers, sustained success depends on execution across retail expansion, gaming adoption and deeper token utility.
More For You
HYPE token's 50% surge is a story of crypto-traditional market convergence, treasury firm says
HYPE has surged 50%, outperforming bitcoin, ether and the CoinDesk 20 index by a big margin.
What to know:
- Hyperliquid's HYPE token has surged more than 50% to $34.57 this week, far outpacing bitcoin, ether and the broader crypto market, as trading activity on the platform accelerates.
- The token rally represents the merging of traditional assets with the crypto world, according to Hyperion DeFi, which is a HYPE treasury company.
- Originally a crypto perpetuals exchange, Hyperliquid has expanded into tokenized trading of equity indices, individual stocks, commodities and major fiat pairs via its HIP-3 upgrade.
Top Stories
