Mark Scott, the lawyer accused of laundering over $400 million for OneCoin digital currency scam, is fighting back. Scott was convicted in November 2019, but he has since tried to fight off the court’s decision. This time, his legal team claims that the government doesn’t have sufficient evidence against him.
Scott was convicted of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. This was after he allegedly helped the operators of OneCoin launder hundreds of millions of dollars. The DoJ claimed that Scott pocketed over $50 million from his actions. He appealed the decision in February, questioning the integrity of the witnesses who testified against him.
In his latest bid to have the charges scrapped, Scott claimed the government has failed to address key arguments. “Instead, it devotes considerable time to highlighting evidence that OneCoin was not a “real” cryptocurrency, and numerous other points not contested by the defense. Mr. Scott’s arguments were far more targeted than that, and are left unanswered in the government’s indiscriminate response,” according to his defense team, as reported by Finance Magnates.
Regarding his bank fraud charges, Scott said that the government failed to prove that the transactions he made constituted fraud. Moreover, the prosecutors haven’t proven that he made any false statements to any bank.
The government has failed to prove that the money he deposited into FDIC-insured bank accounts was proceeds of wire fraud, Scott said.
Scott also moved to refute charges linking him to money laundering through Fenero Funds. These were private equity funds that had been allegedly set up to launder money for OneCoin. He lays the blame on Gilbert Armenta, who has also been charged as a co-conspirator in the money laundering charges. Scott’s lawyers said that he wasn’t involved in any misrepresentations that Armenta made regarding the movement of money from his account to the Fenero Funds.
Ever since Scott moved to appeal his conviction, the U.S. government has fought back, stating that it stands by its evidence against him. The government brought together 17 witnesses who all testified against Scott, implicating him in the OneCoin pyramid scheme which defrauded its victims of over $4 billion.
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