Mark Scott considering OneCoin conviction acquittal motion
A letter filed with the court reveals Mark Scott’s legal team are pondering two post-conviction motions.
The motions being considered pertain to Rule 29 and Rule 33 of the Federal Rules for Criminal Procedure.
Rule 29 pertains to a Motion for a Judgment of Acquittal.
If the jury has returned a guilty verdict, the court may set aside the verdict and enter an acquittal.
This would be based on the argument that there is insufficient evidence to sustain a conviction.
Considering the mountain of evidence the DOJ has against Scott (right), good luck with that.
Rule 33 pertains to a motion requesting a new trial. This would be on grounds of newly discovered evidence or “other grounds”.
Again, seeing as the evidence against Scott seems slam dunk, not sure what wiggle room there is here.
The letter filed on December 4th requests an extension to file any such motions till January 20th, 2020.
On December 5th the letter request was granted. If any motions are filed by Scotts’ defense team, the DOJ has until February 10th to file an opposition.
Either way, it appears Scott’s sentencing won’t happen until at least mid Feb 2020. Realistically probably well into March.
In a sense the Mark Scott trial is not as significant as one would hope: the defendant has not been promoting OneCoin, nor does he get the verdict for marketing OneCoin.
The best outputs of the entire trial have been:
1) that even the defendant didn’t try to claim that OneCoin would not be a fraud. Both parties were in agreement that OneCoin was fraudulent business.
2) Konstantin’s guilty plea.
Both of which the OneCoin pimps are actively ignoring to keep the scam running.
It’s highly significant. His conviction establishes that OneCoin is a criminal enterprise.
He was convicted of money laundering, as defined in USC Sections 1956 (a) (1) (B) (i) and 1956 (a) (2) (B) (i). This requires two conditions to be met:
(1) The money involved was the “proceeds of specified unlawful activity” (“specified” refers to an exhaustive list of criminal activities); and
(2) The defendant knew the money came from unlawful activity.
Scott’s defence simply conceded (1) and only tried to create reasonable doubt about (2).
But even if they had tried to fight (1) as well, without the jury being convinced beyond a reasonable doubt of both (1) and (2), there simply wouldn’t have been a crime committed.
That OneCoin is criminal is an integral part of Scott’s conviction.
No he won’t. And can’t. We discovered a OL archive stored in London that we have offered whenever the DoJ picks it up.
I have promised the BBC the 1st look. I will of course make copies for the FCA.
City of London Police Fraud unit must have been getting lots of OneCoin related complaints recently, because they suddenly published this tweet:
twitter.com/CityPoliceFraud/status/1204729378166444054
Sadly, that’s probably the best they can do to signal that OneCoin is a fraud without launching any actual criminal proceedings themselves.
Mark Scott trial transcript filings just appeared on PACER:
courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/united-states-v-scott/?page=2
They probably have the same 90 day waiting period until they can be accessed. But I think they can be viewed at the court immediately, so Matthew Russell Lee may provide us some samples soon…
Yep, it’s going to be March next year when we’ll see the trial transcripts, if there are no special arrangements to obtain them via court clerk:
Mark Scott’s sentencing postponed to April 21th. Deadline for his post-trial motions February 3rd, and the deadline for Government’s response 24th.
(courtlistener.com/docket/7829201/united-states-v-scott/)
Apparently, also a new postponement in David Pike’s case. He is likely working on a plea deal with the Government.
courtlistener.com/docket/16197044/united-states-v-pike/
In the Class Action case, Plaintiffs still unable to serve the lawsuit to Ruja, Irina Dilkinska and OneCoin Ltd. They have tried to remedy the deficits in their (previously denied) motion for alternative service, and filed a new one, but so far Judge Caproni hasn’t decided on it yet.
Would be interesting to see how they addressed the issues, but document availability on Courtlistener spotty.
courtlistener.com/docket/15064613/grablis-v-onecoin-ltd/
Thanks for the updates. I’m still checking the dockets weekly.
I don’t think the class-action is going to go anywhere TBH.
It is astounding that Judge Ramos has not yet ruled on Scott’s motions. It may be have just become easier for him now that the only cooperating witness lied on the stand.
I followed the link to the trial transcript. Konstantin’s direct testimony fills about 160 pages. He is mentioned dozens of times elsewhere in te transcript.
The Govt will not be able to argue that he was insignificant to it’s case. Something they usually try. Or that the perjury was not significant.
He is the only witness tying Scott to anything criminal. If he can no longer be believed, that’s out of the window and insufficient evidence becomes a real issue.