A cryptocurrency hedge-fund manager who lied about returns on his $90 million fund and siphoned money from its accounts to cover a lavish lifestyle was sentenced to 7½ years in prison Wednesday.
Stefan Qin, 24 years old, pleaded guilty in February to one count of securities fraud after prosecutors said he ran the fund, Virgil Sigma Fund LP, like a Ponzi scheme for three years until its implosion in late 2020. The U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said many of the more than 100 investors in the fund were scammed.
Federal sentencing guidelines called for 15½ to nearly 20 years in prison, but U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni said at a hearing Wednesday in federal court in New York that those recommendations were draconian.
Mr. Qin’s lawyers had asked for a two-year imprisonment, but Judge Caproni said she needed to give a sentence that dissuaded others from committing similar white-collar crimes. Mr. Qin “frittered away millions of dollars” and wiped out some victims’ savings, she said.