Brian Sewell, the founder of the American Bitcoin Academy, has been sentenced to three years in prison for orchestrating a wire fraud scheme that cost investors approximately $2.9 million.
According to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah on Thursday, the 54-year-old was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.
Sewell, who previously resided in Hurricane, Utah, and Puerto Rico, admitted to soliciting funds from students of his online “American Bitcoin Academy.” He convinced victims to invest in a purported hedge fund called the “Rockwell Fund,” claiming it would utilize cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to generate high returns in the crypto market.
Federal prosecutors revealed that Sewell never launched the fund nor developed the promised trading technologies. Instead, he converted the investor funds into Bitcoin, which he stored in a personal digital wallet that was later allegedly hacked, resulting in the loss of the assets.
In addition to the wire fraud charges, Sewell was sentenced in a separate case for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business where bulk cash was converted into cryptocurrency.
This criminal sentencing follows earlier civil charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 2024, Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, warned against such schemes:
“Whether it’s AI, crypto, DeFi or some other buzzword, the SEC will continue to hold accountable those who claim to use attention-grabbing technologies to attract and defraud investors.”