On September 24th the court approved public filing of two redacted communications.
These communications revealed details of Konstantin Ignatov’s testimony perjury, committed at Mark Scott’s money laundering trial.
In his November 2019 witness testimony, Konstantin (right) claimed when he
landed in the US in late February 2019, he was stopped by border patrol.
Border patrol confiscated Ignatov’s phone and laptop. The laptop was returned but they kept the phone.
Konstantin hung on the laptop till he got to Las Vegas.
Konstantin went on to allege that when he
was in Las Vegas, (he) put (the laptop) into a paper trash bag with other trash items, and (he) took it to a trash bin on a busy place in the Las Vegas Strip, and (he) threw it into the trash bin there.
Turns out what he actually did was
provided the laptop (to Duncan Arthur) – so that it could be returned to OneCoin.
(Duncan Arthur) did just that, flying the computer out of the U.S. – beyond the reach of Government authorities – and returning it to Veska Ignatova, the mother of Konstantin and Ruja, at the OneCoin offices in Sofia, Bulgaria.
In the public filing, Mark Scott’s letter motion for a new trial, Duncan’s name is redacted.
We know Ignatov handed him the laptop though, owing to Arthur already having disclosed he was travelling with Ignatov at the time.
As above, Scott’s legal team also failed to redact Arthur’s name in one paragraph of their letter motion.
Upon realizing that Konstantin testified falsely, (Arthur) – who voluntarily cooperated with the Government in this investigation – contacted an investigator.
Scott’s attorney claims the DOJ “failed to disclose this instance of perjury” to them. The attorney alleges the DOJ knew of the perjury as early as June 29th, 2021.
Scott’s attorney claims he learned of the perjury directly from Arthur in July.
Why Arthur did what he did is redacted.
Scott’s attorney goes on to argue;
Konstantin’s deceit upon this Court undermines the credibility of the Government’s star witness against Mr. Scott.
His testimony was absolutely central to the Government’s evidence that Mr. Scott engaged in any kind of illegal activity.
The “interest of justice” requires the court to vacate Mr. Scott’s conviction and grant a new trial.
Does Konstantin lying about what he did with a laptop change the evidence presented against Mark Scott? No.
It also has no bearing on Scott (right) laundering $400 million in stolen OneCoin investor funds. Or any of the evidence presented against Scott by the DOJ.
Scott’s attorney argues that Konstantin lying about the laptop “casts grave doubt on the fairness of the trial”.
In support of this they put forth another alleged instance of perjury, with respect to when Konstantin met Scott.
Konstantin testified falsely about the only occasion when he ever met Mr. Scott.
Konstantin testified to a meeting on July 20, 2016 in which Mr. Scott met Ruja Ignatova and – allegedly – Irina Dilkinska at OneCoin’s Sofia, Bulgaria office.
Given that Irina Dilkinska was allegedly in charge of supervising the laundering of OneCoin funds, her supposed presence at this meeting was a key inculpatory detail.
In dramatic fashion, Konstantin recounted how Ruja supposedly instructed him to call Irina Dilkinska into this meeting and “to make sure that everybody on this floor leaves and goes home so that Irina, Mark, and Ruja are alone.”
Konstantin testified that the following week, Dilkinska told him that “she had to stay [at the meeting] a long time … until Mark Scott understood everything that has to be done or he has to do.”
This was simply a lie. Emails from the Government’s production provided clear and compelling evidence that Dilkinska was not even in Bulgaria at the time of the meeting in question.
This claim is based on email communications, which were rejected as inadmissible hearsay at Scott’s trial.
When the DOJ questioned Konstantin about his perjury in August 2021, he stated he
didn’t think the United States Government would believe what happened to the laptop, which is why he lied.
Konstantin Ignatov doesn’t have an exact memory of why he lied about the laptop.
Konstantin Ignatov didn’t correct (the record) because he didn’t want the United States Government to think he was a liar.
In light of Ignatov’s perjury, Scott’s attorney contends information on Ignatov’s laptop “could have contained additional evidence establishing that his testimony about Dilkinska’s presence at the meeting was also fake”.
Whether Konstantin’s laptop lie overturns his conviction on a legal basis remains to be seen.
A decision on Scott’s retrial motion remains pending.