Maksim Zaslavskiy, a computer programmer from Brooklyn and the first person in the United States to be convicted of running a fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) has been sentenced to a year and a half behind bars.
As Law360 reported on Nov. 18, the Brooklyn businessman received a prison sentence of 18 months for running two scam ICO’s, both of which were advertised as being backed by collateral — diamonds and real estate, respectively — that did not exist. Zaslavskiy pleaded guilty in November 2018 to conspiracy to commit securities fraud.