Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday ordered a former Deutsche Bank investment banker to spend 41 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to a Ponzi-type scam in which he promised investors guaranteed profits from cryptocurrency trading.
The U.S. Department of Justice said Rashawn Russell, 28, of Brooklyn, was sentenced eight months after admitting to wire fraud and access device fraud, and three months after his bond was revoked.
Russell was also ordered to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution to the victims.
The federal public defender representing Russell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Russell allegedly told friends, former college classmates and former colleagues at Deutsche Bank that he could make a 25% return in three months and doubled some investors’ money over previous three-month periods.
The alleged scheme ran from November 2020 to August 2022, with Russell using some of the money to gamble and pay off debts to previous investors, court documents show.
Prosecutors also said that in a separate fraud, Russell obtained at least 140 credit, debit and identification cards in the names of third parties and used the stolen card information to open online gambling accounts and make fraudulent purchases.
Russell was jailed in February after prosecutors accused him of continuing an identity theft scheme after his arrest. He was under house arrest.
In a letter to the sentencing judge this month, Russell said he was “deeply remorseful for having victimized many of my closest friends and acquaintances” whose money he squandered to fund a “crippling” gambling and drug addiction.
Russell worked for Deutsche Bank from July 2018 to November 2021, court and brokerage industry records show.
His LinkedIn profile says he started at Deutsche Bank as an analyst and was promoted to associate two years later.
Deutsche Bank was not accused of wrongdoing.