By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell Book
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
SDNY COURTHOUSE, April 19 – Bitcoin Ventures 2020 and others sued Chet Stojanovich for scamming them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for cryptocurrency mining equipment. Now Stojanovich disappeared mid-deposition and the plaintiffs want criminal contempt.
On March 25, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Judge Lewis J. Liman held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.
Plaintiffs' counsel described a deposition and Stojanovich stepping out to his rental car to get documents but never coming back. They said he should be arrested by the Marshals.
Judge Liman pointed out that a hearing was necessary, and convened one for April 11 at 10 am.
He asked if Stojanovich understood the risk of criminal contempt (Stojanovich appeared by phone, citing weak 3G service, strange for a crypto miner).
On April 11, Inner City Press went to Judge Liman's courtroom - but Stojanovich did not, instead calling in and speaking at length over a speaker phone about his allergies and the brand of his cell phone.
There were arguments by John F. Harwick of the firm Stewart Jones Hacker Murphy, down by Amtrak.
Judge Liman, fresh off the US v. Larry Ray trial, ordered Stojanovich to pay $1000 a day to the Clerk of Court for contempt, to provide all requested information and to appear on May 3 at 3 pm. Transcript on Patreon here.
On April 19, he was arrested on the Canadian border: "arrest today of CHET STOJANOVICH, a/k/a “Chester J. Stojanovich,” on charges of defrauding more than a dozen victims of more than $1.8 million, through fraudulent misrepresentations that he would provide the victims with specialized cryptocurrency-mining computers (“Miners”), and that he would provide Miner-hosting services that would provide the victims with a lucrative stream of “hash power” convertible into cryptocurrency. Instead, as alleged, STOJANOVICH deceived his victims, misappropriated his victims’ money, and provided them with almost no Miners, Miner-hosting services, or hash power. The defendant was arrested early this morning after crossing from Canada into the United States at Champlain, New York."
We'll have more on all this.
The civil case is Holmes et al v. Chet Mining Co, LLC et al., 20-cv-4448 (Liman)
The criminal case is US v. Stojanovich, 22-mj-3298 (Aaron)
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