SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 A federal jury on Monday convicted the co-founder of a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading fund of defrauding more than 20 investors out of nearly $1 million, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Japheth Dillman, 48, of San Francisco, was found guilty on one count each of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said in a news release. The verdict followed a 10-day trial.<\/p>\n
Evidence presented at the trial showed Dillman and a co-conspirator raised funds from investors by misleading them about the capabilities and profitability of Block Bits Capital, authorities said.<\/p>\n
From June 2017 to August 2018, Dillman and others raised money from investors by claiming the fund would profit from automated cryptocurrency trading by using a software tool called the \u201cAutotrader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Authorities said Dillman knew that the tool did not work, and investor funds were not and could not be used as promised.<\/p>\n
Dillman and his coconspirator used the funds to pay themselves and to make risky and speculative investments in other cryptocurrency ventures, authorities said, citing other evidence presented at the trial.<\/p>\n
The investments actually resulted in big losses, and Dillman falsely told investors that Block Bits cryptocurrency trading had led to significant profits, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Dillman is free on bond and faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced Dec. 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 A federal jury on Monday convicted the co-founder of a San Francisco-based cryptocurrency trading fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":443070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[184,175422,7,21214,48025,723,175423,100,395,101,103,102,104,106,105,27933,16599],"class_list":["post-443069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-bay-area","tag-block-bits-capital","tag-california","tag-conspiracy","tag-conviction","tag-crime","tag-japheth-dillman","tag-news","tag-peninsula","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-u-s-attorneys-office","tag-wire-fraud"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443069","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=443069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}