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> Prosecutors showed that each of those shell companies involved the production of notarized affidavits in the names of people who didn’t exist. As a result, th
by nashashmi 3y ago
> Prosecutors showed that each of those shell companies involved the production of notarized affidavits in the names of people who didn’t exist. As a result, the government was able to charge Golestan with 20 counts of wire fraud — one for each payment made by the phony companies that bought the IP addresses from ARIN.
Golestan created 20 companies under false names. And wrote 1 check from each company. Which means 20 cases of (money) wire fraud.
What’s funny here is the chain of laws used to get to a prosecution. Apparently creating twenty companies under twenty false names was not illegal enough.
- ozr 3y agoIt's prosecutorial discretion. Generally speaking, they want to charge things that are a combination of big and easy-to-prove. There's nothing beyond convention that would stop them from _also_ charging for creating companies under fictious names, for adding a wire fraud count for every e-mail he sent as one of the people, for not including their real address on any marketing e-mails they sent, etc etc.