Michael Ackerman, the leader of $35 million crypto scam, plans to plead “guilty” in the criminal case against him. This becomes clear from a letter filed with the New York Southern District Court on July 25, 2021.

The letter states that Mr Ackerman’s guilty plea “cannot be further delayed without serious harm to the interests of justice” because he has been made a time-sensitive plea offer by the Government. Indeed, the offer expires on July 29, 2021, the date on which Mr. Ackerman is scheduled to plead guilty. He has an interest in availing himself of that plea offer, and so his guilty plea should not be delayed.

As FX News Group has reported, Ackerman and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have been discussing resolution of the proceedings.

Let’s recall that, in February 2020, the DOJ announced the unsealing of an indictment charging Ackerman with wire fraud and money laundering. He allegedly defrauded over 100 individuals of more than $35 million through his fake cryptocurrency investment scheme.

In or about 2017, Ackerman and others started a purported cryptocurrency “investment” fund and recruited hundreds of individual investors into the Fund. Under the terms of the Fund, investors were told that they would receive 50% of their trading profits, and that the founders of the Fund, including Ackerman, would receive the other 50%.

Ackerman represented to investors and others that the Fund had a balance of over $315 million worth of cryptocurrencies available for trading in a Fund account. Those representations by him included screenshots of trading data doctored by Ackerman in order to make it appear that the Fund was operating at that successful level, when its actual trading balance was less than the equivalent of half a million dollars.

He, moreover, regularly stole proceeds of this fraud from the Fund, and attempted to conceal those proceeds not only through his false representations to investors, but through the purchase of at least five pieces of real estate, all of which were titled to third parties.

Ackerman is charged with one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.