U.S. prosecutors insist on a 10-year sentence for the co-founder of HashFlare.

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15 hours ago

Two Estonian nationals, co-founders of the cryptocurrency mining service HashFlare, are scheduled to be sentenced on Tuesday after reaching a plea agreement with prosecutors and pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

In court documents filed on Monday, U.S. prosecutors rebutted many claims made by the lawyers for HashFlare co-founders Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin regarding sentencing recommendations.

The two requested that their sentence be based on the time already served, while the attorney representing the U.S. government urged the judge to impose a 10-year prison sentence, stating that "the harm suffered by HashFlare victims is all too real."

"The defendants argue that the victims of HashFlare did not suffer losses, partly based on [expert opinions] and partly based on feeble attempts to discredit victim statements," the prosecutors stated. "However, the expert opinions are primarily based on the so-called returns of HashFlare investors—data that the defendants admitted in their plea agreement was fabricated—while the defendants' own data significantly supports the victim narratives they attempted to discredit."

The HashFlare co-founders previously claimed in court documents that users did not suffer any significant losses after they returned $400 million in cryptocurrency to users and agreed to forfeit their rights to assets frozen by the U.S. government in 2022. Prosecutors stated in Monday's filing that these arguments are "incorrect," asserting that HashFlare essentially operated as a "fraud, Ponzi scheme."

Potapenko and Turogin were indicted in October 2022, arrested and detained in Estonia, and subsequently extradited to the U.S. in May 2024. The two have been out on bail since July 2024 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in February.

During the court proceedings, the HashFlare co-founders received a letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security instructing them to "leave the United States," as part of the Trump administration's push for mass deportations. It remains unclear whether the judge will consider their immigration status during sentencing.

Cointelegraph reached out to Potapenko's lawyer for comment on the sentencing hearing but had not received a response by the time of publication.

Related: Do Kwon pleads guilty to two fraud charges regarding his role in Terraform

Original article: U.S. Prosecutors Insist on 10-Year Sentence for HashFlare Co-Founders

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