CluCoin and Goobers NFT founder DPN3 sentenced to 27 months in prison for gambling away investor funds

BlockBeats News, February 15th, according to The Block, 41-year-old CluCoin founder Austin Michael Taylor has been sentenced to two years and three months in prison for confessing to telecommunications fraud. He will also pay restitution and forfeit assets totaling $1.14 million.

In August 2024, Taylor pleaded guilty to a telecommunications fraud charge involving fraudulent transfers. According to court documents, starting in 2022, Taylor regularly diverted funds intended for CluCoin-related activities to finance his escalating online gambling addiction.

After the launch of the CLU token on the BNB Chain in 2021, Taylor shifted CluCoin's focus to other projects, including minting the "Goobers" series of NFTs and a play-to-earn web3 game called Gridlock and the "Xenia" metaverse platform. In early 2023, Taylor came forward to Clu's investors admitting that he had lost all of the investors' funds through gambling.

Taylor requested the court to exempt him from imprisonment, citing in part his status as a military veteran. He originally faced a sentence of 20 years, which is the maximum sentence for telecommunications fraud.