{"id":2073,"date":"2024-11-03T17:02:42","date_gmt":"2024-11-03T17:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2024-11-03T17:02:42","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T17:02:42","slug":"mutant-ape-nft-creator-to-forgo-1-4-million-escapes-jail-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"Mutant Ape NFT Creator To Forgo $1.4 Million, Escapes\u00a0Jail\u00a0Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In an interesting development, the creator of the fraud NFT collection \u201cMutant Ape Planet\u201d Aurelien Michel is set to avoid a prison sentence following a recent court ruling. However, the defendant has been ordered to forgo over $1 million as punishment for conducting a rug pull.\n<\/p>\n

Mutant Ape Creator To Pay $15,000, Escapes Prison Sentence On Technicality<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In January 2023, the US Attorney\u2019s Office, Eastern District of New York rolled out an indictment<\/a> against Michel accusing the latter of defrauding unsuspecting investors of $2.9 million via the sale of the \u201cMutant Ape Planet\u201d NFTs, modeled after the popular \u201cMutant Ape Yacht Club\u201d collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The French national had marketed these digital assets to several individuals in 2022 with promises of several rewards such as merchandise and metaverse land designed to boost the value of these NFTs upon acquisition.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, Michel reneged on these promises as he perpetrated a rug pull, diverting all raised funds from investors to personal expenses. In November 2023, the malicious NFT creator entered a guilty plea<\/a> to the charges of wire fraud presented by the US prosecutors resulting in a potential prison sentence of five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, in a Bloomberg report<\/a> on November 1, US Judge Margo Brodie handed a one-month sentence to Michel, which has been served following the defendant\u2019s arrest in 2022. Furthermore, the Frenchman is expected to pay a $15,000 fine as well as forfeit $1.4 million of his wealth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Judge Brodie\u2019s sentence is considerably light in comparison to the prosecutors\u2019 request for a 37-month prison sentence. In his defense, Michel\u2019s lawyers had argued he be spared from a jail term as all investors did receive a \u201cdigital artwork\u201d in line with the definition of an NFT that is designed to confirm unique ownership of various digital art forms.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The US Judge appeared to have aligned with the defending counsel as she said to Michel:<\/p>\n

\n

The loss amount is unclear. There\u2019s no question you and your co-conspirators ultimately gained or at least received $2.9 million from the project. But there is also no dispute everyone who purchased an NFT obtained or received something of value. What that value is, is unclear.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

According to Bloomberg, Michel\u2019s case is one of the three US indictments of NFT fraud and the first to obtain a court ruling.<\/p>\n

NFT Sales Reach $356 Million In October<\/strong><\/h2>\n

According to data from NFT data aggregator CryptoSlam<\/a>, the total NFT sales in October climbed to $356.62 million representing a 17.47% gain on the values recorded from September. The reported sales volume of the last month was generated from 7,231,056 transactions involving 964,210 unique sellers and 616,546 unique buyers.\n<\/p>\n

\"NFTs\"<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In an interesting development, the creator of the fraud NFT collection \u201cMutant Ape Planet\u201d Aurelien Michel is set to avoid a prison sentence following a recent court ruling. However, the defendant has been ordered to forgo over $1 million as punishment for conducting a rug pull. Mutant Ape Creator To Pay $15,000, Escapes Prison Sentence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}