The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. (Photo: Ken Lund)

Ex-Locke Lord Partner Swiftly Convicted in $400M Crypto Case

Former Locke Lord partner Mark S. Scott was convicted Thursday of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and launder $400 million in proceeds from a cryptocurrency scam, according to federal prosecutors.

November 21, 2019 at 05:18 PM

3 minute read

By Jack Newsham

The original version of this story was published on New York Law Journal

Former Locke Lord partner Mark S. Scott was convicted in Manhattan federal court Thursday of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and conspiracy to launder $400 million in proceeds from a cryptocurrency scam, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

Scott was said by prosecutors to have left Big Law to play a key part in laundering the money that poured into a bunk cryptocurrency business called OneCoin. His defense lawyers portrayed him as having been duped by OneCoin co-founder Ruja Ignatova, who is still at large, but it took jurors less than a day of deliberations to find Scott guilty of both the charges against him. The trial was before U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos of the Southern District of New York.

Federal prosecutors said Scott was introduced to Ignatova in September 2015 and eventually helped her launder hundreds of millions of dollars from OneCoin, which raised about $4 billion through a pyramid scheme. While OneCoin purported to be a digital token whose transactions were recorded on a blockchain, unlike real cryptocurrencies, there was no decentralized, public blockchain to ensure the system's integrity.

Scott was arrested in Barnstable, Massachusetts, in September 2018 and charged with helping launder proceeds of the fraud through supposed investment funds with bank accounts in the Cayman Islands and Ireland. Prosecutors said he used his share of the proceeds from the scheme to buy a yacht, several homes and luxury cars.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office confirmed that Scott had been convicted but had no immediate comment. The case was investigated by prosecutors from the complex frauds and securities units and from the Manhattan district attorney's major economic crimes bureau.

In an email, Covington & Burling partner Arlo Devlin-Brown, one of Scott's defense lawyers, said his client is "disappointed in the jury's verdict and plans to appeal."

Scott was also represented by Miami-based white-collar defense lawyer David Garvin.

A LinkedIn profile for Scott states that he left Locke Lord in 2016. The profile says he was an equity partner in the firm's Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida, offices, where he focused on both domestic and international transactions. He started his legal career with Locke Lord legacy law firm Edwards & Angell, according to the profile.

OneCoin Founders Charged With Operating Crypto Ponzi Scheme