SDNY COURTHOUSE, Nov 21 – Charged with laundering $400 millino for OneCoin and Ruja Ignatova, Mark Scott on November 21 was found guilty on both counts, wire fraud and bank fraud, by a jury after four hours of deliberations on November 21. The three week trial ended quickly, after e-mails showed Ruja Ignatova asking Scott to "park" money for her for a fee, and him promising her anonymity.
Scott, who has been waiting in the courthouse cafeteria just before the verdict with his wife, stood in the court amid wailing and will face jail and disbarment as a lawyer.
After OneCoin's Konstantin Ignatov got a stay of the civil case against him, his criminal case was said to have been kicked down the road for at least another two months.
It was a productive two months, at least for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. They got Konstantin Ignatov to sign a plea agreement and become a cooperating witness.
On November 19 the government rested its case. Thread here. Late on November 20 - at 11:15 pm -- Scott's lawyer David Garvin asked Judge Ramos to, before the jury start deliberating on November 21, read yet another instruction: "Dear Judge Ramos: Please accept this letter as the request of the defense for a supplemental jury instruction before the jury begins its deliberations. Upon reviewing the jury instructions relating to wire fraud as the specified unlawful activity to the charge of money laundering, it occurred to the defense that the instructions may inadvertently leave the jury with the impression that the crime of wire fraud may be applied solely on extraterritorial acts. The crime of wire fraud set forth in 18 U.S.C. Section 1343 applies to conduct that takes place within the United States. A fraud that occurs outside of the United States does not fall within the definition of wire fraud. We believe that the attached proposed instruction would effectively address this potential problem... As I previously stated, with regard to Count 1, the alleged specified unlawful activity is wire fraud. The wire fraud statute does not apply to a scheme that is carried out outside of the United States.1 Therefore, in order for proceeds to be the proceeds of a specified unlawful activity, the funds have to be proceeds of a fraudulent scheme that occurred in the United States. A fraud scheme occurs within the United States only “when (1) a defendant or coconspirator commits a substantial amount of conduct in the United States, (2) the conduct is integral to the commission of the scheme to defraud; and (3) at least some of the conduct involves the use of U.S. wires in furtherance of the scheme to defraud.”
Earlier on November 20 in his summation AUSA Nicholas Folly asserted that OneCoin is a fraud scheme and Ruja is the leader of that OneCoin. And Scott knows that. Then he directed the jury to emails in which Ruja asked Scott how much he would charge to park or launder 50 million Euro for her. These exhibit have yet to be made available.
Scott's lawyer Arlo Devlin-Brown because by saying that lies to Bank of Ireland could not be bank fraud, because Bank of Ireland is not FDIC insured, an element of the crime. But Sabadell, now IBERIABANK, is FDIC insured.
More generally, Devlin-Brown argued that if Deutsche Bank and HSBC didn't know that OneCoin was a scam, how could Mark Scott know? The jury, of course, is charged with deciding. Thread here; more on Patreon here.
The US concluded its evidence with photographs of a house that Mark Scott bought in Barnstable on Cape Cod, with money through City National Bank of Florida, and his post-arrest statement in which he said he met Ruja Ignatova approximately eight times including in Frankfurt, Germany where he said he thought she lived. Still?
Scott's lawyers put on two character witnesses, both lawyers: Warren Zaffuto of Florida and Robert Skorupa who met Mark Scott in Boston in the 1990s. The summations will be on November 20, an hour and twenty minutes each as urged by Judge Ramos. More on Patreon here.
At the charging conference on November 18, with only four people in the gallery of cavernous Courtroom 318 of 40 Foley Square - once the main intake courtroom of the Mother Court - Arlo Devlin-Brown said that his defense summation will be much shorter if these exhibits are accepted in. Whether this logistical decision, directed at Judge Ramos' stated goal of getting a jury decision one way or the other by Friday so as not to take the jury into the Thanksgiving holiday week, is also not known, for now. Soon it will be known. Watch this site.
Late on the afternoon of November 18 the charging conference was held, with Inner City Press the only media in the courtroom. The US opposed Mark Scott's lawyer's request for a "good faith" jury instruction, and at 10 pm followed it up with a letter: "Dear Judge Ramos: The Government submits this brief letter in opposition to the defendant’s proposed inclusion of a standalone good faith jury instruction. Such an instruction is unnecessary in light of the current jury instructions. The Second Circuit “has long adhered to the view held by a majority of the circuits that a district court is not required to give a separate ‘good faith defense’ instruction provided it properly instructs the jury on the government’s burden to prove the elements of knowledge and intent, because, in so doing, it necessarily captures the essence of a good faith defense.” United States v. Al Morshed, 69 F. App'x 13, 16 (2d Cir. 2003). As the Second Circuit has noted, standard instructions on knowledge and intent “capture the essence of the good faith defense, for someone cannot believe in good faith that he was acting properly and within the law if he knowingly” and intentionally committed the charged offense. Id. The current charge adequately charges the jury on the issues of knowledge and intent—including a reference in the conscious avoidance charge to the fact that if the jury “find[s] that [Scott] actually believed the fact was not so, then you may not find that he acted knowingly with respect to that fact.” The current jury charge is more than sufficient and nothing further is warranted in this case."
Earlier on November 18 after Manhattan District Attorney's Office witness Rosalind October described OneCoin linked accounts at Commerzbank, Morgan Stanley and IBERIABANK, Scott's lawyers put on the stand their first witness, out of order: Florida lawyer Miguel Diaz de al Portilla as a character witness.
After he testified about a real estate deal on which Mark Scott held with a refinance mortgage loan, Assistant US Attorney Christopher Dimase asked him about multiple campaign contributions from Scott when he unsuccessfully ran to re-election to the Florida state legislature.
On Sunday November 17 the prosecutors had written to SDNY Judge Ramos to "request that the Court: (1) preclude the defendant from eliciting testimony from defense character witnesses regarding specific instances of the defendant’s conduct; and (2) instruct the jury that (a) the duty of client confidentiality cannot serve as a defense to criminal conduct; and (b) none of the email communications admitted by the Government at trial—including communications between the defendant and Ruja Ignatova—are privileged."
At the tail end of the trial day on Friday, November 15, Scott's lawyers begrudgingly disclosed one such character witness, apparently Renier David de La Portilla. (Judge Ramos asked it was "del;" the answer was "de la.")
If it is, or even Miguel de La Portilla, both have been described for their roles in Cuban-American / Republican politics in Florida, casting addition light on the role in the case of George W. Bush's brother Neil Bush, first reported by Inner City Press, including at least $300,000 from Ruja Ignatova. We will have more on this during the November 18 trial day. Watch this site, this platform (Patreon) - and @InnerCityPress on Twitter.
Inner City Press also first reported that Mark Scott associate David R. Pike was arrested on OneCoin charges and quietly presented in and bailed by the SDNY Magistrate Court on September 12, 2019 by Magistrate Judge James L. Cott, based on a complaint signed sealed back on August 29 by this week's Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker.
Since then Special AUSA Julieta V. Lozano has asked for continuances, during the Scott trial, to figure out what to do with Pike afterward. Inner City Pres, cover this closely, will have more. More on Patreon here.
