Head of Global FX Club changes plea to “guilty” in fraud case
Michael Wright has changed his plea of not guilty to GUILTY on Count 1 (Commodities Fraud) of the Indictment.
Michael Wright, head of Wright Time Capital Group LLC, doing business as Global FX Club, has changed his plea of “not guilty” to “guilty” in a criminal case launched against him by the US Government.
As per Minute Entry for proceedings held before Judge Paul A. Engelmayer at the New York Southern District Court on Friday, October 13th, Mr Wright has changed his plea of not guilty to GUILTY on Count 1 of the Indictment.
Count 1 of the Indictment charges the defendant with commodities fraud. According to the allegations, from at least January 2011 to June 2017, Mr Wright, while acting as a principal of Wright Time Capital Group LLC, aka Global FX Club, falsely represented to investors that their money was going to be used to trade in off-exchange foreign currency transactions, and falsely represented to investors the trading performance of his company. In addition, he is accused of having misappropriated a large portion of investor funds for his personal use and of having utilized investor funds in a Ponzi-like manner to make payments to other investors.
The sentencing has been set for January 25, 2018.
In September this year, Assistant United States Attorney Jacob Warren informed the Court that the parties in the case, captioned USA v. Wright (1:17-cr-00459), had been in plea negotiations and needed more time to reach an agreement. Plea bargaining is a common practice in criminal cases, typically allowing the defendant to plead guilty to the charges in exchange for a less severe sentence.
The criminal case against Mr Wright has led to the staying of the civil action against him brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in June. The CFTC charged Mr Wright and his companies with fraud, misappropriation, and issuing false account statements in connection with a pooled investment in Forex trading. The CFTC Complaint stated that from approximately August 2010 through the present, Defendants engaged in a fraudulent scheme to solicit more than $400,000 from at least 10 members of the public, promising to use pool participant funds for FX trading.
