Policy, Avi eisenberg, Mango Markets, News The decide overseeing Eisenberg’s case stated he was contemplating approving a retrial on fraud fees for the Mango Markets theft.
NEW YORK, NY — Mango Markets exploiter Avraham “Avi” Eisenberg, who stole $110 million from the now-defunct decentralized finance protocol in 2022, was sentenced to 52 months in jail on Thursday — on his responsible plea to possession of kid sexual exploitation materials, not for his conviction on the crypto theft.
The sentencing comes a yr after a New York jury found Eisenberg guilty of wire fraud, commodities fraud and commodities manipulation for his Mango Markets stunt, and a yr after he separately pleaded guilty to the possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which was discovered on his gadgets after his arrest.
Defense attorneys moved for either a new trial or an acquittal on the Mango Markets-related fees final yr, claiming that the Department of Justice pursued the case within the flawed venue (the Southern District of New York), that the federal government hadn’t correctly proved that the MNGO Perpetual was a “swap,” that Eisenberg meant to govern the MNGO Perpetual’s worth and that his “alleged deceptions … were immaterial.”
In a listening to in Manhattan on Thursday, Judge Arun Subramanian stated he would sentence Eisenberg to greater than 4 years in jail at FCI Otisville, a medium-security facility about two hours’ drive from Manhattan, however that there was a “non-zero chance I will grant that motion” associated to the Mango Markets-related fees.
The bulk of any sentence could be associated to the CSAM cost anyway, the decide stated.
“I think that in this specific area, general deterrence has more weight … the only way to try to stem the tide of the distribution of this material” is thru a jail sentence, the decide stated, earlier than studying three witness statements.
The decide additionally stated he acknowledged to Eisenberg’s effort to higher perceive the impression of his crime, however {that a} jail sentence was nonetheless mandatory. Eisenberg is sentenced to 5 years of probation with strict guidelines after he’s launched from jail, the decide stated, however must set up monitoring software program on all of his digital gadgets and undergo a drug outpatient program.
Presentence filings
In their sentencing submission to the court docket, prosecutors requested for Eisenberg to serve between 6.5 and eight years in jail, stressing the seriousness of his offenses. Though Eisenberg has maintained that his crypto buying and selling actions on Mango Markets have been “compliant” with the protocol and thus didn’t break the legislation (an argument a jury clearly did not buy), prosecutors say Eisenberg was properly conscious that what he was doing was a crime. Before his Mango Markets heist, he’d filed swimsuit in opposition to another person for crypto-related market manipulation, and fled the nation for Israel as soon as his identification because the attacker was unveiled.
Prosecutors additionally detailed Eisenberg’s little one sexual abuse materials fees, telling the decide that between 2017 and 2022, he downloaded 1,274 sexually-explicit photographs and movies of youngsters — together with toddlers and two-month-old infants — in addition to “depictions of sadistic violence and masochism against children.”
In their very own sentencing submission to the court docket, Eisenberg and his attorneys tried in charge his strict non secular upbringing and his lifelong “struggles to conform to social norms” for his crimes, calling him a “fundamentally decent person” and detailing his challenges adapting to the “daily horrors” of life in jail.
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