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Crypto Bros’ Mistrial Was Such an ‘Emotional Burden’ for Deadlocked Jurors That ‘Half’ of Them Cried

Crypto Bros’ Mistrial Was Such an ‘Emotional Burden’ for Deadlocked Jurors That ‘Half’ of Them Cried

In May of last year, two brothers in their 20s were arrested for what the Justice Department at the time called “attacking the Ethereum blockchain and stealing $25 million.” Attacking the blockchain does sound like a cool, sci-fi crime, but the brothers maintained that they were just aggressive traders, not criminals, and yesterday, their prosecution culminated in what sounds like a very stressful mistrial.

The prosecution’s case was that Anton Peraire-Bueno and James Pepaire-Bueno set a trap that amounted to fraud. Prosecutors said they preyed upon crypto trading bots that moved digital money around on behalf of, apparently, three entities tied to actual human beings—although only one, David Yakira, ever came forward as an alleged victim. The trading bots were targeted because they were performing what are known as “sandwich transactions,” and were allegedly lured into situations that caused them to glitch out and release valuable tokens in exchange for, well, shitcoins.

Then the brothers allegedly tried to launder their winnings.

Performing digital muggings (allegedly!) on bots that perform sandwich transactions required extreme sophistication, and the ability to spot an exploit that wasn’t expressly forbidden in the Wild West universe that is crypto land.

The nature of the scheme also seems like a bid for a Robin Hood-type vigilante reputation. Sandwich transactions are legal, but are perceived as parasitic arbitrage plays, or at the very least extremely irritating—essentially just gaming unsuspecting people’s transactions to set the price where the, if you will, sandwich artisan wants it in order to make a quick buck at the expense of a sucker with no recourse. In other words, it appears the brothers correctly predicted the rather nasty behavior of some bots, slipped in some sketchy code, and came away with $25 million.

So were these brothers grifters, or just aggressive traders with what their lawyer called a very good “trading strategy”?

According to Business Insider, the Pepaire-Bueno brothers faced a Manhattan jury specifically chosen to pry apart these fuzzy distinctions, with half of them holding masters degrees of one sort or another. “Almost all,” Business Insider noted, were either middle-aged or retirement-aged.

Welp, in the course of a three week trial, that ambiguity was apparently not resolved to the unanimous satisfaction of the jury, and things sound like they got intense for this unhappy group of 12 people.

According to Bloomberg’s account of the mistrial declaration, while an anonymous juror later explained that the facts of the case were not in dispute, at some point on Friday, the jury pleaded with the judge for help coming to a resolution. Some had lost “multiple nights” of sleep. Then later in the day, a note from the jury said that coming to a decision was placing them under an “emotional burden” and that half of the jurors had “spontaneously broken down in tears” while they were deliberating.

So U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke went ahead and declared a mistrial Friday.

To be clear, a deadlocked jury doesn’t necessarily free the Peraire-Bueno brothers, but it is unwelcome news for prosecutors, who will naturally want to retry the brothers in the hopes of getting a conviction. But they do so with the burden of having already fought to a stalemate, which can’t be any better for morale than the fact that deliberating on the details of this highly technical case made a jury cry.

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                                                            FREE LEGO SET: Through July 31, spending  at Lego.com gets you a free Lego Straw Topper Set. It includes four cute silicone straw toppers, four reusable straws, and a straw cleaner.
The free Lego offers at Lego.com have refreshed again. One option for the end of July would make a great back-to-school gift (or a cute stocking stuffer idea for kids, if you’re thinking that far ahead): Get a free pack of four fun Lego straw toppers plus the straws themselves and a straw cleaning brush with any order of  or more.The Lego Straw Topper Set includes four precious silicone buddies: a robot, a dinosaur, a cat, and an ice cream cone. The pastel straws included are much cuter and less wasteful than getting a new plastic straw at school or the drive-thru all the time. 
        
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            New Lego Pokémon sets are about to be released into the wild: Pre-order Arcanine, Munchlax, and more
            
        
    
Back to the gift ideas thing: Now would be a smart time to grab the Lego set you’ve been wanting to give someone. Your  purchase could be one big Lego purchase or a combination of a few less expensive sets. Remember, preorders do count as a purchase that unlocks free Legos. Our favorite new Lego sets to preorder right now include the Spongebob Squarepants: Bikini Bottom set and Donkey Kong Pinball set.
Two other free Lego deals are live through the end of July: Get a free version of The Darksaber from Lego Star Wars when you purchase the Mandalorian’s N1 Starfighter or get a free Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist set when you spend .

                    
                                            
                            
                        
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Lego.com gets you a free Lego Straw Topper Set. It includes four cute silicone straw toppers, four reusable straws, and a straw cleaner.


The free Lego offers at Lego.com have refreshed again. One option for the end of July would make a great back-to-school gift (or a cute stocking stuffer idea for kids, if you’re thinking that far ahead): Get a free pack of four fun Lego straw toppers plus the straws themselves and a straw cleaning brush with any order of $65 or more.

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Back to the gift ideas thing: Now would be a smart time to grab the Lego set you’ve been wanting to give someone. Your $65 purchase could be one big Lego purchase or a combination of a few less expensive sets. Remember, preorders do count as a purchase that unlocks free Legos. Our favorite new Lego sets to preorder right now include the Spongebob Squarepants: Bikini Bottom set and Donkey Kong Pinball set.

Two other free Lego deals are live through the end of July: Get a free version of The Darksaber from Lego Star Wars when you purchase the Mandalorian’s N1 Starfighter or get a free Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist set when you spend $40.

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FREE LEGO SET: Through July 31, spending $65 at Lego.com gets you a free Lego Straw Topper Set. It includes four cute silicone straw toppers, four reusable straws, and a straw cleaner.


The free Lego offers at Lego.com have refreshed again. One option for the end of July would make a great back-to-school gift (or a cute stocking stuffer idea for kids, if you’re thinking that far ahead): Get a free pack of four fun Lego straw toppers plus the straws themselves and a straw cleaning brush with any order of $65 or more.

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Back to the gift ideas thing: Now would be a smart time to grab the Lego set you’ve been wanting to give someone. Your $65 purchase could be one big Lego purchase or a combination of a few less expensive sets. Remember, preorders do count as a purchase that unlocks free Legos. Our favorite new Lego sets to preorder right now include the Spongebob Squarepants: Bikini Bottom set and Donkey Kong Pinball set.

Two other free Lego deals are live through the end of July: Get a free version of The Darksaber from Lego Star Wars when you purchase the Mandalorian’s N1 Starfighter or get a free Spider-Man vs. Anti-Venom Heist set when you spend $40.

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