Convicted mango market extortionist Abraham “Avi” Eisenberg has asked the court to dismiss fraud and merchandising charges and retry him.
77 pages work out In a lawsuit filed earlier this week, Eisenberg’s attorneys argue that the Southern District of New York is not the proper venue and that the government has failed to prove that Eisenberg intended to manipulate the price of perpetual futures contracts on decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Mango Markets.
“The evidence was clear that Mr. Eisenberg acted alone in or around Puerto Rico during all relevant time periods—a somewhat limited time period since all relevant trading and withdrawal activity occurred over a period of approximately one hour,” his attorneys said. “In the absence of any evidence at trial, the government misrepresented the facts and the law in its brief.”
Prosecutors said Eisenberg acquired $110 million worth of cryptocurrency by “artificially manipulating” the price of a perpetual futures contract called MNGO Perpetuals. They said he then used the stablecoin USDC to buy large amounts of the exchange’s native token, MNGO, in an effort to drive up the price of MNGO, which in turn drove up the price of MNGO Perpetuals. Mango Markets said about $116 million The value of money based on exploitation. Eisenberg said Get arrested In Puerto Rico, December 2022.
Eisenberg said responsibility A few days after the October 2022 incident, he said his actions were part of a legitimate and “highly profitable” trading strategy that used Mango Markets as designed. Eisenberg later returned $67 million to Mango Markets, and the protocol community maintain $47 million was invested in governance voting.
His trial It began on April 9 and lasted about a week, during which Eisenberg’s defense argued he was implementing a legitimate “winning” trading strategy, but prosecutors said it was fraudulent.
Eisenberg’s attorneys argued that the government failed to prove that the Commodity Exchange Act applied to the case, and therefore the commodity conviction should be dismissed. The prosecution failed to show that MNGO Perpetual was a swap and not “strictly a security.” In the commodity manipulation conviction, his attorneys argued that Eisenberg did not intend to manipulate the market price of MNGO Perpetual.
“The trial evidence demonstrated that this price was completely irrelevant to Mr. Eisenberg, as he never attempted to sell his contracts, but instead took advantage of his ability to withdraw and borrow against the value of his outstanding positions,” the attorneys said.
Sentencing is scheduled for November 13, according to court documents.
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