OneCoin co-founder Sebastian Greenwood is scheduled to be sentenced on September twelfth.
Within the lead as much as his sentencing, Greenwood’s lawyer filed a Sentencing Memorandum on August twenty ninth.
Within the memorandum, Greenwood’s legal professionals request Greenwood be sentenced to time served and deported.
It must be famous that enormous sections of Greenwood’s fifty-two web page memorandum are redacted. Sufficient of the memorandum is redacted nonetheless, and offers perception into the lead as much as Greenwood’s arrest and his time in jail.
Sebastian Greenwood in all probability wasn’t sleeping with Ruja Ignatova
Maybe second in intrigue solely to Ruja Ignatova’s destiny, is the query of whether or not Ignatova and Greenwood had been romantically linked.
This would possibly sound unusual to somebody who solely is aware of OneCoin as a $4 billion Ponzi scheme, however for these of us who’ve been following since 2014 it’s oddly compelling.
Not notably due to who both Ignatova or Greenwood are, however reasonably due to who they’re related to.
Ignatova is married to German nationwide Bjorn Strehl. The couple have a daughter, purportedly birthed by way of surrogate.
It must be famous that the standing of Ignatova’s daughter, very similar to herself, is unknown.
Moreover Ignatova was already having a documented affair with co-conspirator Gilbert Armenta (2015-2018).
Greenwood has an ex-wife in Sweden, with whom he has two kids.
Two of Karl’s kids, EG and OG, ages 13 and fifteen, at the moment stay in Sweden with Karl’s ex-wife, who Karl married when he was working for his household in Sweden.
After Greenwood fled Sweden for Thailand in 2014 (extra on that later), he impregnated an area.
Whereas residing in Thailand, Karl was in a relationship with [redacted].
Karl and Ms. [redacted] had a daughter, AG, who’s now seven years previous and lives in Thailand along with her mom.
Karl’s relationship with Ms. [redacted] ended amicably, and Karl supported his daughter financially and cared for her commonly till his arrest.
Within the two years main as much as his arrest (2016-2018), Greenwood additionally spent “a number of months working in Panama”.
There, Greenwood impregnated one other native.
Through the two years earlier than his arrest, Karl spent a number of months working in Panama and shaped a relationship with [redacted], with whom he had a son, LG, now six years previous.
After their relationship ended, Karl’s son and his mom moved to Mexico.
Whereas Greenwood had a behavior of impregnating ladies wherever he was staying, I believe it’s unlikely he was in an intimate relationship with Ignatova.
I’m not saying they by no means slept collectively, nevertheless it’d have been a fairly tight squeeze between Greenwood’s two impregnated girlfriends, Ignatova’s husband, her daughter and her Armenta affair.
- 2010 – Ruja Ignatova marries Bjorn Strehl
- 2014 to 2016 – Greenwood will get concerned with a Thai lady and has a baby
- 2015 – 2017 – Ruja Ignatova begins affair with Gilbert Armenta
- November 2016 – Ruja Ignatova unexpectedly broadcasts beginning of her daughter to Strehl (through surrogate)
- 2016 to 2018 – Greenwood works in Panama and has one other baby with a Mexican lady
- October 2017 – Ruja Ignatova disappears
- July 2018 – Greenwood is arrested in Thailand
Sebastian Greenwood’s life earlier than OneCoin
There are some fairly large holes in Greenwood’s life previous to co-founding OneCoin in 2014.
Right here’s what’s disclosed in his sentencing (notice I’ve omitted household life in Sweden because it’s probably not related);
From 2009 to 2012, Karl lived and labored in Singapore.
From 2012 to 2014, Karl returned to Sweden to proceed work for his mother and father’ promoting company.
In 2014, Karl moved to Asia and started working for OneCoin.
As a result of it’s clearly not advantageous to a requested discount in sentencing, Greenwood’s scamming previous to OneCoin has been omitted.
Greenwood’s time “in Singapore” is when he was scamming folks by way of the SiteTalk/Unaico Ponzi scheme.
I don’t consider Greenwood returning to Sweden after SiteTalk/Unaico was a factor. Or if he did, it actually wasn’t to work in his mother and father’ promoting company.
SiteTalk/Unaico collapsed in 2012. The scheme nonetheless continued below Frank Ricketts (a fellow OneCoin co-conspirator), all through 2013 and 2014.
I don’t suppose Greenwood was a part of Rickett’s The Alternative Community reboot, however circa 2013 he was in BigCoin.
Bigcoin was a Ponzi scheme and it was there Greenwood met Ruja Ignatova.
The pair would go on to launch OneCoin in 2014; their very own model of the by then collapsed BigCoin Ponzi scheme.
If Greenwood did return to Sweden to work at his mother and father’ promoting company, it was just for the briefest of time earlier than he resumed Ponzi scamming with BigCoin.
Greenwood’s time in a Thai jail
Sebastian Greenwood’s 2018 arrest noticed him incarcerated in Thailand’s Klong Prem jail.
Exhibit 1 accompanying Greenwood’s sentencing memorandum is believed to be a supporting affidavit from Greenwood himself, which quite a lot of the memorandum is sourced from.
Sadly the exhibit itself was filed below seal so that is all that has been made public;
Upon arriving there (at Klong Prem), Karl was compelled to strip bare and was hosed down, his physique was shaved, and he was compelled to take a seat bare, chained to different inmates for twenty-four hours earlier than receiving garments.
Karl was housed in a room with roughly 75-120 different prisoners, with a small area on the ground to sleep, and not using a mattress, and a gap within the flooring for a bathroom.
The ground was product of damaged cement and filled with cockroaches, rodents, and scorpions.
The room was managed by gangs, and the only correctional officer assigned to oversee the room let the gangs act with impunity.
As the one non-Thai speaker within the room, Karl was particularly focused by the gangs.
The gangs compelled Karl to sleep closest to the bathroom gap and repeatedly approached him to try to get him hooked on crystal meth or to hawk medicine to different new inmates.
Meals at Klong Prem consisted of dirty rice and fish crammed with maggots and was in any other case managed by the gangs. Karl survived on fruit and water.
Karl was saved on this room every day from 3:00 p.m. to five:30 a.m.
At 5:30 a.m. each morning, Karl was compelled to take a seat within the solar within the lotus place for 3 hours of “prayer.” If he failed to take a seat correctly, he was bodily punished.
Karl was petrified his complete time at Klong Prem. He was unable to make use of the bathroom or sleep for weeks out of concern for his security.
Throughout his time at Klong Prem, Karl witnessed quite a few gang sexual assaults and noticed 4 folks die from suicide.
Talking on his incarceration, Greenwood’s father wrote;
As soon as inside its yellowing partitions topped with rusty barbed wire, Karl’s head was shaved and he was locked up in a single room with greater than 100 inmates starting from thieves and drug smugglers to cutthroats and murderers.
His mattress was the concrete flooring, his bathroom a bug-infested gap in a single nook the place the inmates defecated in full view.
Following this account, the subsequent two pages are completely redacted.
Greenwood’s incarceration on the New York Metropolitan Correctional Middle
Karl was extradited to the U.S., the place he was detained on the MCC for a interval of practically three years till August 2021.
Karl suffered by way of a number of the worst durations of MCC’s tainted historical past.
As this Courtroom is conscious, MCC was filthy, constantly lacked sizzling water, plagued with infestations of roaches and rodents, and consumed by violence and rampant drug use.
Power shortages of workers, together with medical workers, additionally meant that individuals suffered for lengthy durations of time earlier than ever receiving therapy.
Even earlier than the pandemic, MCC was commonly on lockdown, leading to inmates being confined to their cells for 23 hours a day.
For example, Jeffrey Epstein’s loss of life in August 2019 resulted in a number of lockdowns. And, in February 2020, MCC skilled a very extreme lockdown after a gun was smuggled into the ability by a corrections officer
Throughout this lockdown, inmates reported to attorneys that mice and water bugs ran by way of the items as correctional officers unblocked holes in partitions that inmates had filled with clothes to forestall pests.
Bathrooms overflowed, spreading urine and uncooked sewage. No clear ingesting water was supplied, and inmates had been compelled to drink from their toilet sinks, which frequently solely ran brown water.
Situations solely went from unhealthy to worse on the MCC when the pandemic arrived in March 2020.
Karl reviews being on lockdown for eighteen consecutive months, starting in March 2020.
Right here, a number of paragraphs are redacted. I consider these is a private recountment by Greenwood of his time at MCC submit March 2020.
MCC was finally closed in August 2021.
Greenwood’s incarceration on the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Middle
After the MCC was closed in 2021, Karl was transferred to the MDC, the place he has spent the previous two years.
Situations on the MDC are equally appalling, and the ability is constantly on lockdown.
In September 2022, the corrections officers’ union despatched a letter to the Bureau of Prisons complaining of staffing shortages resulting in “hazardous circumstances” on the MDC that “are abusive and inhumane as inmates typically obtain meals premature, don’t have any entry to hygiene merchandise or the flexibility to bathe, and lack entry to ample medical care.”
Over the previous two years on the MDC, Karl reviews that he has been on lockdown for weeks, and even months, at a time, confined to a five-by-six-foot cell with one different inmate.
Karl estimates that, in whole, he has spent properly over 50% of his five-year detention, or roughly 2.5 years, in lockdown, an unfathomable and deeply injurious size of time.
All through his incarceration within the US, Greenwood’s mother and father, each of whom are “of their mid-seventies”, had been solely in a position to go to as soon as in 2019.
Writes Greenwood’s mom;
When my husband and I finally had been in a position to go to Karl after his life had taken such a disastrous flip was in July 2019 at MCC—a complete yr after his incarceration. We barely acknowledged Karl.
The remainder of what Greenwood’s mom wrote has been redacted.
Mrs. Greenwood described the expertise of visiting Karl in 2019 as “deeply horrifying,”
Mr. Greenwood added that: We’ve not seen Karl since that terrible day in 2019— [redacted] —however not a minute has handed with out me seeing his ghostly face, languishing behind bars.
It’s a picture that has haunted me ever since and I see it now as I write this.
Greenwood’s Ponzi scamming has ruined his kids’s lives
Along with ruining his personal life and the lots of of hundreds of victims he scammed by way of OneCoin, Greenwood’s Ponzi scamming has additionally affected the lives of his two Swedish kids.
Karl’s kids miss him enormously and have many questions on his whereabouts.
The youngsters have grown into youngsters with out the assist or steerage from their father.
Greenwood’s mom writes;
There have been quite a lot of questions, crying and lots of nightmares and their mom has achieved a great job of bringing them up below these troublesome circumstances and we’re grateful that she is protecting of them, however for my part, there’s a large void of their souls that solely Karl can fill.
He’s the one one who can reply all their questions and assist them to grasp and transfer ahead to a cheerful, welladjusted life.
Greenwood’s youthful brother claims
Karl’s arrest and incarceration has had “a deep affect on us all,” and that the “affect on his kids is incalculable.”
In the meantime over in Thailand;
Upon Karl’s arrest, Thai police confiscated all of Ms. [redacted] property and possessions.
Presumably this was because of Greenwood funding his Thai daughter’s life with ill-gotten positive factors tied to OneCoin.
Greenwood’s sentencing
As famous, Greenwood’s attorneys have requested for time served. Or alternatively house detention in Sweden.
The Sentencing Pointers calculation on this case is grossly disproportionate to the conduct and may, in impact, be discounted virtually completely.
The Courtroom ought to impose a sentence of time served or, alternatively, a interval of house detention to be served in Sweden.
Greenwood’s attorneys have additionally requested that restitution and a civil financial advantageous be dropped.
The argument towards restitution is that there are too many victims, or that making an attempt to calculate restitution will lead to additional sentencing delays.
Pursuant to Part 3663A(c)(3) of the Obligatory Sufferer Restitution Act, the Courtroom might resolve to not impose restitution if it finds that “the variety of identifiable victims is so massive as to make restitution impracticable,” or that “figuring out advanced problems with truth associated to the trigger or quantity of the sufferer’s losses would complicate or lengthen the sentencing course of to a level that the necessity to present decision to any sufferer is outweighed by the burden on the sentencing course of.”
The argument towards a civil financial advantageous is that Greenwood can be unable to pay it.
As evidenced by the record of property supplied to Probation, Karl has demonstrated that he lacks the flexibility to pay a advantageous.
Of Greenwood’s property we learn about;
Through the peak of OneCoin (2015-2016), the DOJ declare Greenwood was raking in €20 million EUR a month ($21.7 million USD).
Greenwood is dealing with life imprisonment for a most of 60 years. Pending any additional delays, he’s scheduled to be sentenced on September twelfth.
If Greenwood escapes additional imprisonment, restitution and a financial penalty, again in Sweden his uncle has provided a job “that may assist him get his life again on observe.”
