It took a Manhattan federal jury roughly two hours on Wednesday to convict Jonathan Spalletta of computer fraud and money laundering. The 36-year-old from Rockville, Maryland had stood trial for six days over two attacks that destroyed a decentralised exchange in 2021.
The exchange was Uranium Finance. Prosecutors said Spalletta took about $1.4 million from it on 8 April 2021, then returned on 28 April for about $53.3 million. The platform shut down.
The money went through Tornado Cash and into collectibles, according to Decrypt. Among them were a Black Lotus Magic: The Gathering card at about $500,000, Roman coins at $601,545 and a piece of Wright brothers aircraft fabric that had flown to the Moon.
Authorities seized about $31 million in crypto in February 2025.
The computer fraud count carries up to 10 years and the laundering count up to 20. Crypto Briefing reported that Judge Jed Rakoff set sentencing for 16 February.
The defence is the reason the case matters beyond one defendant. His lawyers argued, by Crypto Briefing’s account, that he used publicly available smart contract functions, not malicious code or stolen credentials. That is the claim that exploiting a flaw in open code is trading, not theft. The speed of the verdict suggests it did not land.
Two things remain open. An appeal on that argument is the obvious next step, and the law on it is less settled than a two-hour deliberation implies. Then there is restitution. About $31 million was recovered against more than $50 million taken, from a platform that no longer exists, and no one has said how its former users will be found or paid.
