US Govt to provide explanation as binary options fraudster Lee Elbaz seeks prosecutors disqualification
The Government will have to submit written declarations from certain individuals regarding the disclosure of potentially privileged materials to the prosecution team.
As the start of the trial in the criminal case targeting Lee Elbaz, the ex-CEO of Yukom Communications, who stands accused of binary options fraud, approaches, the efforts of the defendant to have the case dismissed intensify.
The latest such motion by Elbaz, also known as Lena Green, seeks to Dismiss the Indictment or, in the Alternative, Disqualify the Prosecution Team. The document is sealed, so no public access is granted, but partial insight into its content may be gained by the Order signed by Judge Theodore D. Chuang of the Maryland District Court on Monday, June 3, 2019.
Basically, the defendant is seeking to nix the case against her or disqualify the prosecution team due to the leakage of privileged information.
On June 3, 2019, the Judge said that, after considering the parties’ submissions, the Court requires that the United States Government submit written declarations from certain individuals regarding the events that led to the disclosure of potentially privileged materials to the Prosecution Team and the extent of the Prosecution Team’s access to those materials. The Court directs the Government to include all available details in the written declarations. If more information is required to adjudicate the Motion, an evidentiary hearing will be held during which the attorneys will be subject to cross examination.
The Judge gives the Government 10 days to submit several written declarations. One of these declarations has to come from the specific member of the Prosecution Team who requested that the contents of the original Google and SpotOption hard drives at issue on the Motion be uploaded to the Relativity database, stating the reasons for that request. This Prosecution team member also has to explain what consideration was given to the possible presence of potentially privileged information on those hard drives; why the request was ultimately made despite the presence of potentially privileged information on the hard drives; and what intent, if any, there was to review potentially privileged information on those hard drives.
Let’s recall that the Indictment charges Lee Elbaz with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and three counts of wire fraud. The Indictment alleges that Elbaz participated for over three years (from approximately May 2014 and continuing through approximately June 2017) in a fraudulent scheme involving the sale and marketing of binary options – including as the Chief Executive Officer of Yukom Communications. Yukom was an Israel-based business that provided sales and marketing services, including investor “retention services,” for two internet-based businesses that sold and marketed binary options with the brand names BinaryBook and BigOption.
