Co-Founder of Now-Defunct BitFunder Gets 14 Months Imprisonment

The operator of now-defunct Bitcoin (BTC) exchange BitFunder, Jon Montroll, has received a 14 months prison sentence following federal charges of obstruction of justice and securities fraud, finance and trading industry news outlet FinanceFeeds reported on July 12.

The proceedings against Montroll began last year. In July 2018, Montroll pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, admitting that he provided false balance statements to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in an investigation of the fake 6,000 BTC BitFunder hack in 2013.

The proceedings against Montroll ended on July 11, 2019, wherein Judge Richard M. Berman of the New York Southern District Court ruled to imprison Montroll for 14 months and determined three years of supervised release. Although Montroll’s counsel argued in favour of a probationary sentence, the government made a case for a sentence from 27 to 33 months’ imprisonment.

Recently, U.S. District Judge Sandra J. Feuerstein sentenced 44-year old New Jersey resident Blake Kantor to 86 months in prison for running a cryptocurrency-related scheme. Feuerstein also ordered Kantor to pay a total restitution of $806,405 distributed to the victims who invested in his scam, as well as forfeiture of $153,000 in stolen proceeds.

In May, the SEC initiated court proceedings against California resident Daniel Pacheco for allegedly operating a multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency pyramid scheme. The SEC accused Pacheco of conducting a fraudulent, unregistered offering of securities through two California-based companies, IPro Solutions LLC and IPro Network LLC, from January 2017 through March 2018.