The action brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) against fraudulent binary options scheme Y Trading and its sole owner and operator Yehuda Belsky, also known as Jay Bell, is likely to remain stayed. This is indicated by a letter filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) with the New York Eastern District Court on June 14, 2021.
The letter, seen by FX News Group, provides an update to the Court regarding the CFTC case (which is a civil case) and the parallel criminal case. Let’s recall that, on June 25, 2019, the defendant Yehuda Belsky pleaded guilty, pursuant to a plea agreement, to a superseding information in the Criminal Case. The superseding information contained three counts: (1) securities fraud, in violation of Title 15, United States Code, Section 78j(b) and 78ff; (2) failure to register as a commodities trading advisor, in violation of Title 7, United States Code, Sections 6m(1) and 13(a)(5); and (3) misappropriation of customer funds, in violation of Title 7, United States Code, Section 13(a)(1). The defendant has not been sentenced.
On November 19, 2018, the Court granted the government’s request and issued an order to stay proceedings in the Civil Case until the conclusion of the related Criminal Case. Because the defendant has pleaded guilty in the Criminal Case, the DOJ no longer seeks a stay of discovery in the CFTC case.
In the interest of permitting the government to complete its prosecution in the Criminal Case, the DOJ requests an order to stay final resolution of the Civil Case until the defendant has been sentenced in the Criminal Case.
The CFTC’s Complaint alleges that from at least June 22, 2015, through the present, Belsky, individually and on behalf of Y Trading, fraudulently solicited customers by making materially false statements, including that he was an expert binary options trader with a record of profitable binary options trading on behalf of multiple customers.
At the same time, Belsky allegedly failed to disclose that he was misappropriating customer funds, had no binary options trading account in the name of Y Trading or in his own name from which to trade and had been the subject of a 2008 CFTC Order. Belsky, as alleged, also deceived some customers by providing a false binary options trading account statement and by using the fictitious name of “Jay Bell” to conceal his identity.
According to the Complaint, Belsky solicited at least $1,258,000 from at least 14 customers to purportedly trade binary options on their behalf.
