Former Washington CFO bags two-year sentence for $35 million fraud

A former CFO in Washington was sentenced by the US Department of Justice to 2 years in prison for wire fraud after duping his employer out of $35 million to finance his own crypto project. Last November, prosecutors scored a wire fraud conviction against Nevin Shetty, 42.

He allegedly diverted the money to his HighTower Treasury platform in 2022, after learning in April that performance issues would lead to the end of his CFO position. Shetty funneled the money without the board’s or executives’ knowledge and used it for high-yield DeFi lending operations, claiming returns of 20% or more.

The DOJ said Shetty intended to provide his employer with a limited, fixed return while taking the remaining profits through HighTower.

Within the first month, the operation generated roughly $133,000. But the market turmoil that washed over his operation after the collapse of the Terra ecosystem took a heavy toll. The value of his crypto investments tumbled from $35 million to near nothing. 

The DOJ had asked for a nine-year sentence for Nevin Shetty

The DOJ reported that once the $35 million was essentially gone, Shetty confessed to two of his fellow executives what he had done. After which, he was immediately fired.

He was then formally charged in May 2023. Judge Tana Lin later found Shetty guilty on four counts of wire fraud in November 2025, noting that his actions deeply impacted the company and upended the lives of its 60 employees.

She added, “You almost put the company out of business…. You were playing with money that wasn’t yours.”

Prosecutors had sought a nine-year sentence for Shetty, arguing that his deception and fraud inflicted massive losses and led to 60 layoffs, but the court instead imposed a two-year term.

Shetty was also fined $35,000,100 and will spend three years on supervised release after prison. Additionally, Judge Lin barred him from serving as an officer or director of any company unless he is cleared by the probation office.

Do Kwon was sentenced to prison last year for committing crypto fraud

Crypto entrepreneur Do Kwon was similarly sentenced last December to 15 years in prison for fraud. On December 31, 2024, he was extradited, and he later entered a plea of guilty in August 2025, after which US District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer handed down his sentence.

According to US Attorney Jay Clayton, the mogul deceived investors while inflating the value of Terraform’s digital assets for his own gain. The mogul claimed that Terraform’s blockchain technology enabled it to build a fully decentralized financial ecosystem, with its own currency, payment platform, stock exchange, and savings bank.

In reality, Terraform’s main products didn’t function as Kwon had assured and were manipulated to give the false impression of a working decentralized financial system to attract investors.

Clayton had also accused Kwon of trying to conceal his fraudulent schemes, launder the funds he obtained, and attempt to buy political immunity in foreign nations.

Although Kwon expressed remorse in court after the victims, in person and by phone, described the devastating impact of his scheme on savings, charitable causes, and everyday lives. Another victim also wrote to the judge that he thought about ending his life after the scheme destroyed his father’s retirement savings.

Nonetheless, Judge Engelmayer sentenced him to a 15-year term, noting, “Your offense caused real people to lose $40 billion in real money, not some paper loss.” He even described Kwon’s operation as “a fraud on an epic, generational scale.”

Former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried was also handed a 25-year prison term in 2024, though he filed an appeal. As of Friday, however, the Second Circuit had not issued a decision since arguments were heard in November.

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