Trial of binary options fraudster Lee Elbaz scheduled for January 2019

The criminal proceedings against Lee Elbaz – the former CEO of Israel-based Yukom Communications, a purported binary options sales and marketing company operating on behalf of BinaryBook and BigOption, continue at the Maryland District Court.

The Court has announced the schedule of the pretrial proceedings against Ms Elbaz. The two-week jury trial is set to take place on January 7, 2019.

The US Government has until June 20, 2018, to reply to Ms Elbaz’s motions to dismiss. Let’s recall that she is seeking to dismiss the indictment against her for failure to allege proper venue and for failure to state an offense. More interestingly, she has requested the so-called bill of particulars (a request for more detailed information). She has demanded that the United States Government reveals the identities of her co-conspirators and the victims of the crimes she allegedly committed.

Count One (conspiracy to commit wire fraud) references more than eight unidentified individuals who shared marketing materials with one another and with Ms Elbaz, and those materials are alleged to contain misrepresentations. At no point, however, the Indictment provides the names of these individuals or their personal or professional connection to Ms Elbaz, the defense counsel argues.

Furthermore, the defendant says that “the Indictment fails to provide the names of those who are allegedly victims of the charged offenses”. According to the defense, “the identities of these unnamed individuals are essential for purposes of trial preparation because only with that information will Ms. Elbaz be able to assess the Government’s case”.

According to the Indictment, Yukom Communications provided investor “retention” for BinaryBook and BigOption, promoting and marketing binary options, and those binary options were fraudulently sold and marketed. The indictment further alleges that in her role as CEO of Yukom, Elbaz, along with her co-conspirators and subordinates, misled investors by falsely claiming to represent the interests of investors but that, in fact, the owners of BinaryBook and BigOption profited when investors lost money.

From in or about May 2014 through in or about June 2017, Elbaz was an employee of Yukom and served in various capacities, including as Chief Executive Officer from at least in or about March 2016 through December 2016. In startling statements made during the detention hearing of Elbaz, her counsel stated that “CEO in Israel may not mean the same thing here” and that she used the designation to simply to “make the customers feel important”.

The case is captioned USA v. Elbaz (8:18-cr-00157).