Michael Murgio, who participated in a scheme to control a New Jersey Credit Union to conceal an illegal Bitcoin operation, was sentenced to one year probation last week in U.S. District Court in New York City.
U.S. District Court Judge Alison J. Nathan also ordered the 66-year-old Florida man, who has a net worth of more than $2 million, to pay a $12,000 fine and serve 200 hours of community service, according to court documents.
Prosecutors recommended that Murgio receive a sentence of 10 months to 16 months because of the nature and seriousness of the offense, the need to promote respect the law, provide just punishment and afford adequate deterrence.
Murgio’s attorneys, Stuart N. Kaplan and Joseph G. Sconzo of Palm Beach, Fla., argued for probation because of their client’s age, his lack of any criminal history and his lifetime devotion to community service and the education of children.
Murgio was a former Palm Beach School board member and a teacher. He has been working as a real estate agent.
Murgio pleaded guilty in October to obstruct an examination of a federal financial institution. He wrote a letter in an attempt to convince the NCUA that three members were eligible to serve on the board when in fact they were not.
Those board members were selected to control the Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union of Lakewood, N.J., which was used to operate Coinmx, an illegal Bitcoin operation.
Murgio’s son, Anthony, took over the credit union after he and others made $150,000 in bribes to Trevon Gross, the former board chair of the cooperative.
Anthony Murgio, 33, of Tampa, Fla., pleaded guilty in January to charges associated with operating the Bitcoin operation, Coinmx, which processed more than $10 million in illegal transactions through the credit union. Murgio is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
In late 2014, Anthony Murgio, Gross and others also obstructed an NCUA examination by attempting to mislead examiners about the financial health of the cooperative, according to court records.
Gross, who was also a pastor at Hope Cathedral in Jackson, was indicted for accepting the bribes and other felony charges. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. Legal proceedings are under way for Gross’s case in U.S. District Court in New York City.
In the fall of 2015, the NCUA placed the $290,927, 96-member Helping Other People Excel FCU into conservatorship.
Federal prosecutors said Coinmx was owned by Gery Shalon, the leader and self-described founder of a sprawling criminal enterprise that raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in illicit proceeds.
From 2012 to mid-2015, Shalon and other individuals ran massive computer hacking crimes against several U.S. financial institutions, including JP Morgan Chase Bank, and national investment brokers Scott Trade, E*Trade and the Dow Jones & Co., which led to the largest theft of personal information from U.S. financial institutions ever, according to federal prosecutors.
Shalon pleaded not guilty to numerous fraud charges. He is awaiting a trial hearing in U.S. District Court in New York City.
