Mark Scott, a Florida lawyer accused of aiding the fraudulent cryptocurrency scheme OneCoin, is pushing for a new trial.
Counsel for the defendant filed a letter with the New York Southern District Court on October 1, 2021, explaining that Mr Scott plans to move for a new trial in view of recently obtained evidence of the perjury committed by OneCoin’s leader Konstantin Ignatov.
The document, seen by FX News Group, explains that the Government’s sole cooperating witness, Konstantin Ignatov, perjured himself at Mr Scott’s trial with respect to the destruction of a OneCoin laptop. As the Government revealed in its Opposition, Ignatov admitted to the perjury regarding the destruction of the laptop but insisted to the Government that his testimony was otherwise truthful.
Following the unsealing of the Supplemental Motion and the Government’s Opposition last week, counsel for Mr Scott has received credible information that Ignatov’s perjury was far more extensive than he has admitted, and included false testimony that Irina Dilkinska (another OneCoin employee) attended a three-way meeting with Ruja Ignatova and Mark Scott on July 20, 2016 at OneCoin offices in Sofia, Bulgaria. Defense counsel anticipates that newly obtained documentary evidence will conclusively establish that Dilkinska was not in Bulgaria at that time.
Mr Scott needs time to investigate this additional information concerning Konstantin’s perjury and related disclosure issues.
Mark Scott is a Florida lawyer licensed to practice in both Florida and New York. Scott first met Ruja Ignatova (the “crypto queen”) in September 2015. His primary role in the fraud appears to have been creating and operating foreign hedge funds, which were used to launder OneCoin proceeds.
Specifically, in February 2016, Scott registered MSS International Consultants Limited (“MSSI”) – the sole two directors of which were Scott and Pike – in the British Virgin Islands; Scott and Pike opened numerous investment funds through MSSI to facilitate their money laundering activities.
In particular, they registered funds in the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Ireland (collectively the “Fenero funds”). The Fenero funds received and transmitted by wire hundreds of millions of euros in 2016 and 2017. Several of the wire transfers involved bank accounts associated with the OneCoin fraud; the wire transfers spanned the globe, involving banks in Singapore, Bulgaria, Germany, and Ireland.
Although Scott originally enlisted a separate company to provide administration services for the Fenero funds, when that company raised questions regarding the origin of certain funds transferred into Fenero bank accounts, Scott terminated the relationship. Thereafter, Scott directed banks, including some that transact significant business in the Southern District of New York, to transfer money that was the proceeds of the OneCoin fraud; he structured the transactions in order to evade anti-money laundering (“AML”) procedures.
In March 2019, the Department of Justice announced that Scott was charged by Indictment with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.