Person

Jamie McDonald

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, heading the Manhattan federal office that prosecutes financial, crypto, cyber and national-security cases.

Current stories

investConfirmed12 publishers

Michael Smith gets 18 months in the first US criminal case over AI bot streaming fraud

Michael Smith got 18 months in prison for collecting more than $8 million in royalties with bots and AI songs, in the first US criminal case of its kind. Prosecutors wanted at least 46 months, so the deterrent the music trade groups asked for comes in at well under half that length.

Publishers:arstechnica.com bleepingcomputer.com cryptobriefing.com dexerto.com gizmodo.com hothardware.com justice.gov musicbusinessworldwide.com techrepublic.com techspot.com thequietus.com tomshardware.com

Perspective Coverage

12 publishers

Builder: Builder 26%
Operator: Operator 54%
Investor: Investor 20%

Reality

Evidence82
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives62
Confidence78

investConfirmed9 publishers

Jury convicts Uranium Finance hacker with $31 million of the $53.3 million take already seized

Manhattan federal jurors convicted Jonathan Spalletta of computer fraud and money laundering over the $53.3 million Uranium Finance exploit of 2021. Where the roughly $31 million in crypto seized in February 2025 ends up now turns on restitution and forfeiture rulings still to come.

Publishers:bleepingcomputer.com crypto.news cryptobriefing.com cryptopolitan.com decrypt.co dexerto.com gizmodo.com news.bitcoin.com qz.com scworld.com

Perspective Coverage

10 publishers

Builder: Builder 30%
Operator: Operator 42%
Investor: Investor 28%

Reality

Evidence85
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+8
Incentives40
Confidence78

securityConfirmed7 publishers

Mabna Institute case re-upped with 17 defendants, this time during a war with Iran

Prosecutors added eight names to a 2018 indictment over 31.5 terabytes of stolen academic work. The target set has not changed: professors' mailboxes and university libraries.

Publishers:bleepingcomputer.com cyberscoop.com helpnetsecurity.com securityaffairs.com securityweek.com sentinelone.com therecord.media

Perspective Coverage

7 publishers

Builder: Builder 13%
Operator: Operator 69%
Investor: Investor 18%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+15
Incentives40
Confidence70

investConfirmed3 publishers

Prosecutors test the Commodity Exchange Act on Robinhood engineers' $50,000 perp trades

The Justice Department says two Robinhood engineers each made more than $50,000 trading Hyperliquid perpetuals ahead of Robinhood Crypto listings. Prosecutors charged commodities fraud and wire fraud instead of securities fraud.

Publishers:crowdfundinsider.com cryptopolitan.com decrypt.co

Perspective Coverage

3 publishers

Builder: Builder 10%
Operator: Operator 50%
Investor: Investor 40%

Reality

Evidence70
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+10
Incentives45
Confidence65

investOne report1 publisher

DOJ charges two ex-Robinhood engineers over Hyperliquid perp trades ahead of listings

Prosecutors say Hefu Chai and Huaisong Xiang each cleared more than $50,000 from long perpetual positions on Hyperliquid, opened on planned listing dates they read in a private Robinhood Slack channel.

Publishers:cointelegraph.com

Reality

Evidence58
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+5
Incentives60
Confidence52

leadershipOne report1 publisher

Mangione's guilty plea puts pre-attack reconnaissance on the record

He admitted locating UnitedHealthcare's investor conference, emailing the company as a fake investor, and travelling to New York to shoot Brian Thompson. Security budgets now have a reference case.

Publishers:businessinsider.com

Reality

Evidence74
Adoption: Not scored
Hype gap+18
Incentives71
Confidence63