French developer Aurélien Michel is charged with Fraud for alleged $ 2.9 NFT’s rug pull
On January 4, 2023, French footballer, Aurélien Michel, was arrested by US authorities as he passed through JFK airport.
He was immediately taken into custody and brought before a federal judge in Brooklyn, where he was arraigned on a complaint charging him with being the leader of a scheme involving NFT fraud. He posted bail on February 1, 2023 and has been at liberty in the U.S. since that time.
On Friday of last week, the Law Office of Matthew Galluzzo (LOMG) successfully persuaded a criminal court judge in Brooklyn to seal the records of arrest and conviction for a client who had been convicted of a misdemeanor in 2013. The client was arrested in 2012 for allegedly stealing over $100,000.00 from his condominium board. He repaid the money to his victims and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor to satisfy the felony charges against him. Since that time, the client has worked as a white collar professional in a variety of roles. However, he recently became eligible for sealing of this criminal conviction pursuant to New York Criminal Procedure Law Section 160.59. So, he asked LOMG to submit an application on his behalf. In these sorts of situations, eligible defendants can ask criminal court judges to seal the arrest and convictions records of certain types of criminal cases over ten years old. LOMG filled out the required paperwork and submitted a memorandum of law in support of the application, complete with character letters in support. The judge was convinced that the client deserved sealing of his records, and now the client can apply for new jobs without fear that background checks will reveal this old conviction.
Certain criminal convictions in New York state courts can be sealed pursuant to N.Y. CPL Section 160.59. If you think you might be eligible for this relief, you should strongly consider contacting the experienced criminal defense attorneys at the Law Office of Matthew Galluzzo PLLC. Matthew Galluzzo is a former Manhattan prosecutor who has successfully petitioned many criminal court judges across New York state to seal the convictions of many deserving people.
Recently, former prosecutor Matthew Galluzzo appeared on PBS Channel 13 to explain several legal issues relating both the recent verdict in the Trump civil sex abuse trial and the new indictment of Congressman George Santos.
Matthew Galluzzo is a former sex crimes prosecutor who now represents both plaintiffs and defendants in civil sex abuse cases. He also regularly defends individuals accused of white collar crimes and fraud in federal court.
The link to the interview is available here.
This morning Matthew Galluzzo, former Manhattan prosecutor, appeared on LA FM, a radio station based in Colombia, to discuss some aspects of the prosecution of Donald Trump in Manhattan. In English and Spanish.
Donald Trump: ¿puede llegar a la presidencia de Estados Unidos? | La FM
Now that Trump has been indicted in Manhattan (New York County) for alleged crimes relating to the falsification of business records, some experts have hypothesized that the judge overseeing the case will order a pre-trial gag order over the parties – including the prosecutors, the defense attorneys, and the famous defendant himself, ex-President Trump. This post discusses the legal issues surrounding a gag order and the practical implications of it in this case.
A gag order basically instructs a party to a litigation to refrain from speaking publicly about the case. A New York judge overseeing a criminal case has the power to issue a gag order over one or more of the parties to the case. Gag orders are relatively rare, however. They certainly are not done as a matter of routine. The Constitution guarantees the right to free speech, after all, and courts are generally loath to abridge those rights. However, gag orders may be necessary to protect other valuable rights under the Constitution, such as the right to a fair trial (contained in the Sixth Amendment of the Bill of Rights), as well as the all-important “true administration of justice”.
Sometimes defense attorneys ask courts to order prosecutors not to talk about their clients’ cases publicly for fear that they would prejudice any potential jurors. For example, the attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell – convicted in Manhattan federal court of assisting notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein – contended that the federal prosecutors had tainted potential jurors by hosting press conferences in which they laid out the facts of their case. Ultimately that application for a gag order was denied, but the federal judge did admonish the attorneys to adhere to the rules of professional conduct for lawyers, which generally prohibits attempts to unfairly influence juries (or potential juries) outside of the courtroom. After all, the paramount rule of trials was explained by Justice Holmes in 1907: “The theory of our system is that the conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether private talk or public print.” Patterson v. Colorado, 205 U.S. 454, 462 (1907).
Now that Donald Trump has been indicted in New York County (Manhattan) Supreme Court on felony charges relating to the alleged falsification of business records, one of the more interesting issues to consider is the possibility of selecting a jury to hear Mr. Trump’s case.
As a preliminary matter, it seems reasonably likely that a trial will in fact happen. Having indicted a former president on numerous felony counts, it seems unlikely that they will make Mr. Trump a plea bargain offer to anything less than a felony. To anyone who knows Mr. Trump at all, it seems inconceivable that he would admit to any guilt of a crime, especially with a looming presidential election. Thus, in the absence of a plea bargain (which resolves most cases), a trial should happen.
That being said, it is quite likely that the trial might not happen before the presidential election next year. One can only imagine what would happen to the indictment if Mr. Trump were elected president prior to the trial taking place.
On April 2, Matthew Galluzzo was quoted as a legal expert by Canadian national news as to whether Mr. Trump could receive a fair trial in Manhattan. The link to the article is available here.
On March 31, Matthew Galluzzo – a criminal defense attorney and former Manhattan prosecutor – appeared on NPR’s Morning Edition with host Sacha Pfeiffer to discuss the new Trump indictment in New York County. A link to his interview is available here.
This week, American law enforcement officers arrested Aurelien Michel, a French national living in the UAE, as he passed through JFK International Airport in New York City. He has since been arraigned before a federal magistrate judge in the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn) on federal wire fraud charges, pursuant to 18 USC Section 1343. A complaint unsealed in federal court alleges that Mr. Michel advertised and marketed a series of Mutant Ape NFTs (non-fungible tokens) and collected nearly three million dollars in sales of various cryptocurrencies from numerous buyers and investors. However, it is further alleged that Mr. Michel never delivered the NFTs to his investors, but instead transferred this money to various accounts controlled by him. The complaint alleges that he later apologized on the platform Discord for the “rug pull” (i.e. a slang term for failing to deliver after receiving funds) because the community had become too “toxic.”
It would appear from the complaint that Mr. Michel has an obvious defense that he did not intend to defraud anyone, and that he fully intended to give his customers their NFTs eventually. He may have received the funds and then encountered difficulty in acquiring the NFTs for his customers due to volatile market conditions or other issues.
It is always difficult to estimate sentencing exposure at this stage of a criminal case, but preliminary estimates might suggest the following for Mr. Michel:
Recently Manhattan federal prosecutors announced the arrests of 17 individuals for allegedly defrauding the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA) COVID-relief program called the Paycheck Protection Program. In a nutshell, these individuals are accused of wire fraud for purportedly applying for small business relief funds on behalf of small businesses (or sole proprietorships) that either did not exist or did not generate the revenues described in their loan applications.
For many small businesses, the SBA’s various COVID-relief programs, including the Paycheck Protection Program, were critical in helping those businesses survive the once-in-a-generation economic downturn created by the pandemic. However, the fraudulent abuses of the program have become almost legendary and have recently been the subject of many Congressional inquiries.
The Department of Justice this year launched a task force to prosecute – at the federal level – crimes involving abuse of the COVID relief programs. So, one should expect to see more such prosecutions launched against individuals in the near future.
Firm News and Legal Information Center