EXTRA: Hacker Truglia Is Remanded to 12 Years in Prison for Not Paying $20M Restitution now Extortion Target in MDC-Brooklyn, more info here

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by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 10 – For his role in a $20 million cryptocurrency hack in 2018, Nick Trugia was sentenced to 18 months in prison and agreed to $20 million in restitution. But he never paid.

On July 10, Senior Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York re-sentenced Truglia to 12 years in prison, with immediate remand.

But Truglia's Federal Defender Mark Gombiner said Trugia had previously been extorted by Metropolitan Detention Center - Brooklyn inmates of $48,000 in a Wells Fargo Bank account, and had "informed" about it, making him a target there.

Judge Hellerstein ordered Truglia remanded to the Essex County Correctional Center in New Jersey. But the US Marshal he had summoned during a break before imposing the re-sentence told him Essex was not possible until the next day.

After a long sidebar, Judge Hellerstein said Truglia would be taken to MDC but kept solitary overnight, then returned to the SDNY courthouse on July 11 and take out to Essex.

Federal Defender Gombiner, who argued against the consideration of a video in which a masked hacker, found by Judge Hellerstein to be Truglia, said it'd be fine to serve 10 years in prison as long as the stolen crypto was waiting afterward.

Judge Hellerstein said, If ten years are OK, I'll sentencing you to twelve.

The sentencing guidelines were 51 to 63 months; 12 years is double the top of the guideline of 63 months, which is what Assistant US Attorney Timothy Capozzi was requesting.

Gombiner called the 12 year sentence illegal and asked Judge Hellerstein to reconsider. Judge Hellerstein said he'd thought long and hard about it. An appeal seems certain .But how fast? And on the issue of bail pending appeal?

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Truglia on set in photo cited in court, and in the docket on PACER, filed by SDNY

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