Judge Overturns Fraud Convictions of Mango Markets Exploiter - Unchained

A U.S. federal judge has overturned three criminal convictions of Avraham Eisenberg, the trader accused of stealing $110 million from decentralized exchange Mango Markets.

U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian vacated Eisenberg’s convictions for commodities fraud and market manipulation, and acquitted him of a third charge.

Judge Subramanian found that the evidence did not support the jury’s conclusion that Eisenberg had made materially false representations to Mango Markets.

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“Mango Markets was permissionless and automatic,” the judge wrote. “The court agrees that there was insufficient evidence of falsity.”

The court ruled that New York was not the proper venue for the case. Eisenberg executed the trades from Puerto Rico, and the government’s attempts to tie the case to New York, citing a user in the upstate town of Poughkeepsie and a third-party vendor in Manhattan, were deemed insufficient to establish jurisdiction.

Despite the ruling, Eisenberg remains in prison, serving a separate four-year sentence for possession of child sexual abuse material, a penalty unrelated to the Mango Markets case.