OneCoin co-conspirator requests to postpone sentencing

Mark Scott, one of the individuals linked to fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin, is seeking to change his sentencing date, according to a Letter filed by his counsel with the New York Southern District Court on January 14, 2020.

The sentencing of Mark Scott, who was convicted on November 21, 2019 on two counts, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud, is currently set to be sentenced on February 21, 2020. However, the current deadline for Scott to file any Rule 29 and Rule 33 motions (that is the motions for retrial and acquittal) is February 3, 2020, and the Government has been given until February 24, 2020 to respond.

In light of these upcoming deadlines, the defense request that the Court adjourn the sentencing date until April 21, 2020. This is set to grant time to complete briefing on post-trial motions and provide the Court with an opportunity for review. Also, this additional time will permit counsel to prepare for sentencing. The Government has no objection to this schedule, according to the defense counsel’s letter filed yesterday.

Scott, a former equity partner at the law firm Locke Lord LLP, laundered approximately $400 million in proceeds of OneCoin through fraudulent investment funds that he set up and operated for that purpose. Scott was paid more than $50 million for his money laundering services, which he used to buy luxury cars, a yacht, and several seaside homes.

Beginning in 2016, Scott formed a series of fake private equity investment funds in the British Virgin Islands known as the “Fenero Funds.” He then disguised incoming transfers of approximately $400 million into the Fenero Funds as investments from “wealthy European families,” when in fact the money represented proceeds of the OneCoin fraud scheme. Scott layered the money through various Fenero Fund bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and the Republic of Ireland. Scott subsequently transferred the funds back to Ignatova and other OneCoin associated entities, this time disguising the transfers as outbound investments from the Fenero Funds. As part of the scheme, Scott and his co-conspirators lied to banks and other financial institutions all over the world, including to banks in the United States, to cause those institutions to make transfers of OneCoin proceeds and evade anti-money laundering procedures.

Scott was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud, which carries a maximum potential sentence of 30 years in prison.