Reginald Fowler, a businessman situated in Arizona, was charged with wire fraud on Friday following a long list of other charges that have accumulated over the past month.
Fowler Has Another Charge Added to His Record
Fowler was once a stake owner in the Minnesota Vikings, but he’s also a potential operator of Crypto Capital, a payment processing venture that seeks to govern digital currency transactions. This new charge alleges that he garnered money through “false and fraudulent pretenses” and had money directed to a professional sports league.
Fowler was originally offered a plea bargain when he was first taken into custody in early February. It was stated that he would only be charged with one felony granted he agreed to forfeit nearly $400 million in crypto funds from a whopping 50 separate addresses. Not a fan of potentially being separated from his money, Fowler turned the bargain down.
He’s now slated to face trial, where he’ll likely be hit with more charges and a larger prison sentence if he’s found guilty. An updated indictment documenting the case against Fowler reads:
Fowler defrauded individuals associated with a professional sports league (the ‘League’) in connection with his acquisition of an ownership stake in the League, inter alia, (i) by falsely claiming personal ownership of funds that were, in truth and in fact, funds Fowler had obtained through the unlicensed money transmitting business charges in Count Four of this Indictment and (ii) by converting those individuals’ funds toward his investment in the League.
Some of the other charges he’s facing include conspiracy, bank fraud and running an unlicensed money transmitting business. Among some of the digital exchanges that utilized Crypto Capital to process their transactions are Bitfinex and Quadriga CX, both of which are presently wrapped up in scandal.
Quadriga CX was one of Canada’s leading crypto exchanges, but it’s now facing a huge class-action lawsuit given that none of the customers can access their money. The company’s CEO Gerald Cotten allegedly passed away in India in late 2018, and as the only person with the private keys necessary for accessing the exchange’s digital reserves, $194 million disappeared into oblivion the day he stepped into the great beyond.
Customers were thus left empty-handed and could not access their funds.
Did You Mess Around with BTC?
Bitfinex is also facing a lawsuit of its own from former customers who claim that the trading platform – with help from the stable coin Tether – worked to manipulate the bitcoin price in 2017. At that time, the world’s number one cryptocurrency by market cap spiked to an all-time high, but later came tumbling down and lost more than 70 percent of its value the following year.
Bitfinex denies it had anything to do with bitcoin’s price maneuvers.
