The trial of Avraham Eisenberg, who is accused of withdrawing $110 million unjustly from a decentralized exchange in October 2022, has been postponed a month before the start of the trial. The trial will not be held until the second quarter of 2024.
Trial Postponed to April 2024
The judge presiding over the case accepted the request for a postponement made by Avraham Eisenberg’s lawyers a month before the trial. Although federal prosecutors were reluctant to delay the trial until April 8, 2024, they accepted the request, which was also approved by the judge overseeing the case. The decision indicates that Eisenberg will not appear in court until April 8, 2024.
In Eisenberg’s trial, federal prosecutors allege that he engaged in commodity manipulation and telephone fraud by implementing a highly profitable trading strategy against Mango Markets, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange based on Solana, in October 2022.
Progressing at a Similar Speed to Bankman-Fried’s Trial
Eisenberg’s trial, which is taking place in the Southern District of New York where Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder and former CEO of FTX, was convicted of seven charges in a jet trial that lasted less than a year, where more than $8 billion of FTX customers’ funds went missing and he was accused of covering it up.
Eisenberg’s trial schedule was progressing at a similar pace until the end of October when the Bureau of Prisons transferred him from the New Jersey federal prison to the more restrictive Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, hindering defense lawyers’ efforts to prepare for the December 8th hearing.
Eisenberg’s lawyers also requested additional time due to complex and novel legal and factual issues. Eisenberg’s alleged scheme, which includes dizzying concepts that would make any prosecution and defense much more challenging than Bankman-Fried’s relatively simpler fraud case, has also confused minds.
