No Jail Time For Floyd Mayweather and DJ Khaled In Fraud ICO Case

By Sumedha Bose

Two extremely popular American celebrities have narrowly escaped indictment in a lawsuit filed against them.  Renowned boxer Floyd Mayweather and music producer DJ Khaled were sued by investors for promoting an ICO that turned out to be fraudulent.

The court document filed on May 13, states that these two have been dismissed for now. The two personalities were promoting Centra Tech’s ICO on their social media, for which they were sued, since the ICO turned out to be a fraudulent operation.

The judge has however ruled that the investors who filed the lawsuit have failed to provide evidence in support of the statement that they bought tokens because of the promotion done by these two celebrities.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had charged the pair last November, with unlawfully advertising ICOs and not disclosing that it was a paid promotion. Mayweather received $100,000 payment from Centra Tech for promoting the ICO, while Khaled received $50,000.

Judge Robert Scola presided over the case, and in his filing he stated that the plaintiffs had failed to prove that they followed Mayweather on Twitter or that they saw any of the tweets he made in relation to the ICO.

Notably, Mayweather had posted tweets of himself holding the startup’s debit card along with the caption:

“Spending bitcoins Ethereum and other types of cryptocurrency in Beverly Hills…”

Another tweet made by the boxer ahead of the ICO’s launch, encouraged his followers to buy the tokens “before they sell out”. He also added “I got mine.”

It was proven that the two investors who brought the case against him had already purchased the tokens of the ICO before the boxer began promoting the ICO on his Twitter.

Similarly, music producer Khaled was also sued for posting promotional content on Instagram. He too was dismissed from the lawsuit on similar grounds.

A settlement was reached, and neither party admitted to nor denied the charges against them.Khaled was fined above $150,000 while Mayweather was fined more than $600,000. It is illegal for celebrities to endorse ICOs without revealing the compensation they are receiving for the promotion.