After his arrest on suspicion of helping OneCoin launder hundreds of millions of dollars, Mark S. Scott sat down with FBI agents for an interview.

Scott alleges he was denied an attorney during the interview. He’s subsequently asked the court to suppress anything he said during it as evidence.

On September 27th the DOJ clapped back, inadvertently revealing the real reason behind Scott’s desperate filing.

During his interview, conducted by an FBI special agent and IRS criminal investigation agent, Scott was queried on ‘investment made by the Fenero Funds into Cryptoreal Investment Trust‘.

At one point Scott (right, with his wife), was asked

to remind the agents who the investors in the Fenero Funds had been.

Fenero Funds was a shell company Scott set up to launder stolen OneCoin investor funds through.

In response to a series of questions about Fenero’s investors, Scott lied to the agents about who Fenero’s investors were and where the money in the Fenero Funds was from.

Scott’s false statements included, among others, that OneCoin and Ruja Ignatova had nothing to do with Fenero or any other funds that Scott had worked on.

Contrary to Scott’s statements to the agents, all of the money invested into the Fenero Funds was derived from the OneCoin fraud scheme and was invested into the Fenero Funds on behalf of Ignatova.

This was towards the end of the interview, and unbeknownst to Scott, US authorities knew full well about investment by Fenero Funds at the time.

After the agents confronted Scott about his untruthful statements, and informed him that they had evidence that Fenero was funded by proceeds from OneCoin, Scott informed the agents that “I’d like to have a lawyer help me.”

After Scott made this statement, the agents concluded the interview, and did not ask Scott any additional substantive questions.

Mark Scott doesn’t want the DOJ using his interview answers because lying to federal agents looks terrible in court.

All this baloney about “they didn’t let me speak to a lawyer” is desperation.

With respect to  Scott bringing up lawyers during his interview though, the DOJ notes the first request was made regarding

a civil attorney, (and) was not a clear invocation and was unrelated to custodial interrogation.

I.e. while Scott did bring up contacting an attorney, it had nothing to do with his arrest and subsequent interview.

Scott’s second purported invocation was at best ambiguous and did not constitute an invocation under controlling law.

The third time Scott brought up an attorney (when the interviewing agents let him know they knew he was lying), this time it was clearly in relation to his interview and then present situation.

Consequently the agents, at Scott’s request, ended the interview and questioning.

As per the interview transcript, Scott also waived his right to have a lawyer present during questioning at the start of the review.

The DOJ notes;

There is also no suggestion that the waiver was coerced or involuntary.

Finally the DOJ points out that as per the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, Scott’s deadline to file for suppression was May 14th, 2019.

The Government produced Scott’s post-arrest statement to defense counsel over a year ago, on September 14, 2018.

Scott has articulated no basis for his failure to file his motion by the Court’s deadline. Nor could he.

Accordingly, Scott’s right to bring a motion to suppress at this stage has been waived.

A decision on Scott’s suppression motion remains pending. Stay tuned…