{"id":279040,"date":"2026-04-21T20:14:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279040\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:14:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:14:15","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-defrauding-bitwise-investors-of-nearly-45-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/279040\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to defrauding Bitwise investors of nearly $45 million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"KFSN logo\" class=\"awXxV NDJZt sJeUN IJwXl CfkUa EknAv NwgWd \" data-testid=\"prism-image\" draggable=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/origin-kfsn.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Tuesday, April 21, 2026 4:34PM<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/svg;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAABAAAAAJCAQAAACRI2S5AAAAEElEQVR42mNkIAAYRxWAAQAG9gAKqv6+AwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"Man pleads guilty to defrauding Bitwise investors of nearly $45M\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; A Fresno man has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of about $45 million with loans made to the failed Fresno-based startup company &#8212; Bitwise.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Court documents show David Hardcastle and business partner Andrew Adler loaned Bitwise Industries approximately $20 million in high-interest hard money loans through their special purpose entity, &#8220;Startop Investments LLC.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Investigators say Hardcastle and Adler altered the original loan documents, then split them up and sold them to other investors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Authorities believe this made it appear that Bitwise was obligated to pay significantly less interest on the loans than was true.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Adler pleaded guilty last year, and was sentenced to three years and five months in prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Hardcastle is scheduled to be sentenced September 14 of this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">He faces a maximum statutory penalty of 20 years in prison.<br class=\" \"\/><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 KFSN-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday, April 21, 2026 4:34PM FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) &#8212; A Fresno man has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[120341,120338,120339,112,114,113,17074,120340,294],"class_list":["post-279040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-120341","tag-bitwise","tag-defraud","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-investors","tag-man-pleads-guilty","tag-timely"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}