The US district judge who convicted Terraform Labs founder Do Kwon of defrauding investors requested answers to a series of questions before a hearing was held on Thursday, court documents revealed.
Paul A. Engelmayer, Judge of the Southern District of New York, posed six questions, including whether Kwon’s victims will have their day in court and whether he can avoid serving time if he is sent to South Korea, where he faces pending charges. The judge asked both sides to respond to his questions by December 10.
The collapse of Terraform, which reached over $50 billion in market value at its peak, was a pivotal moment for the cryptocurrency market crash in 2022.
“Assuming Mr. Kwon is transferred to foreign custody to serve the second half of his sentence, what assurance would the United States have that he would not be released before completing the prison sentence imposed by this Court?” the judge asked. He also asked if Kwon’s victims “have expressed interest in being heard at sentencing.”
US federal prosecutors are seeking a 12-year prison sentence for Kwon; his defense team asked for a five-year term.
Engelmayer also asked for clarity on whether Kwon should receive credit for the approximately 17 months he spent in Montenegrin custody, what specific criminal exposure he still faces in South Korea, how any victim compensation process would work, and whether he qualifies for federal sentence reduction credits or should face supervised release.
