BitFunder’s Co-Founder Receives 14 Months Of Prison Sentence

Jon Montroll, the operator of now-defunct Bitcoin (BTC) exchange BitFunder receives a 14 months prison sentence following federal charges of obstruction of justice and securities fraud, as reported by finance and trading industry news outlet FinanceFeeds on July 12.

The case initiated last year and in July 2018, Montroll pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice. He admitted of providing false balance statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission during a fake 6,000 BTC BitFunder hack of 2013 investigation.

The proceedings ended on July 11, 2019, and Judge Richard M. Berman of the New York Southern District Court determined Montroll to a 14 months imprisonment and 3 years of supervised release. While Montroll’s counsel argued in favor of a probationary sentence, the government made a case for a sentence from 27 to 33 months’ imprisonment.

Just recently, a 44-year old New Jersey resident Blake Kantor was sentenced to 86 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein for running a cryptocurrency-related scheme. Kantor was also ordered to pay total restitution of $806,405 distributed to the victims of his Ponzi scheme, along with a forfeiture of $153,000 in stolen proceeds.

In May, the court proceeding between SEC and California resident Daniel Pacheco began. The SEC accused Pacheco of allegedly operating a multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency pyramid scheme and conducting a fraudulent, unregistered offering of securities through two California-based companies, IPro Solutions LLC and IPro Network LLC, from January 2017 through March 2018.

Read more: Brazilian State Launches Blockchain Platform For Government Contract Bids

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