Mark Cuban To Be Deposed Next Month in Voyager ‘Ponzi’ Suit

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban will be deposed with two employees as he defends against a lawsuit likening Voyager to a Ponzi scheme

article-image

DFree/Shutterstock.com, modified by Blockworks

share

“Shark Tank” billionaire Mark Cuban is set to be deposed as part of a class-action lawsuit over his role in promoting failed crypto lender Voyager to millions of Americans.

A number of Voyager users filed the lawsuit in August, claiming both Cuban and Voyager CEO Steve Ehrlich encouraged them to invest with the alleged “deceptive” platform, which plaintiffs claim was a “massive Ponzi scheme.”

A deposition refers to the testimony of an individual conducted outside of court as part of the discovery process conducted prior to a trial. 

Cuban had requested a US judge to split the deposition process into two sessions. But a court filing dated Jan. 9 showed US magistrate judge Lisette Reid ordered him to do it in one sitting. He is now scheduled to be deposed in Dallas, Texas on Feb. 2.

The judge also ordered Pierce Robertson, Rachel Gold and Sanford Gold, three plaintiffs who brought the suit forward, to be deposed between Jan. 9 and Jan. 24.

Cuban’s professional basketball team the Dallas Mavericks was also named in the suit. Two team execs for corporate partnerships, Ryan Mackey and Kyle Tapply, will also be deposed before Feb. 23.

“Cuban and Ehrlich, as will be explained, went to great lengths to use their experience as investors to dupe millions of Americans into investing — in many cases, their life savings — into the Deceptive Voyager Platform,” the lawsuit read.

“As a result, over 3.5 million Americans have now all but lost over $5 billion in cryptocurrency assets.”

The suit further alleged that public support of Voyager by the Dallas Mavericks and Cuban showed they were targeting amateur investors with misleading promises of making large profits.

Cuban and Voyager didn’t return Blockworks’ requests for comment by press time. Voyager filed for bankruptcy in July after crumpling under exposure to now-defunct crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the On the Margin newsletter.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Salt Lake City, UT

MON - TUES, OCT. 7 - 8, 2024

Blockworks and Bankless in collaboration with buidlbox are excited to announce the second installment of the Permissionless Hackathon – taking place October 7-8 in Salt Lake City, Utah. We’ve partnered with buidlbox to bring together the brightest minds in crypto for […]

Salt Lake City, UT

WED - FRI, OCTOBER 9 - 11, 2024

Permissionless is a conference for founders, application developers, and users. Come meet the next generation of people building and using crypto.

recent research

Flashnote Template (3).png

Research

MetaDAO offers a platform for DAOs to engage in futarchy, using conditional markets and profit incentives for improved decision-making. Conditional markets allow market participants to speculate on whether or not the passage of a proposal will increase a token’s market value. By crowdsourcing information from market actors, DAOs can utilize futarchy to identify decisions that will be most beneficial for their token’s market price. MetaDAO as an organization is explicitly engaged in decision-making on the criteria that market participants believe a decision will be accretive to the price of the META token.

article-image

Meanwhile, Euler returns with a V2 launch of its lending protocol

article-image

Two bitcoin mining-focused companies introduce new leaders to their director boards as they prep for the segment’s evolution

article-image

A fund co-founded by Alan Howard’s son and 10T veterans launched alongside a generalist fund with Notation Capital co-founder Nick Chirls as a general partner

article-image

Making sense of the jobs report that didn’t necessarily clear up what size of rate cut the Fed could opt for

article-image

Plus, India really showed out for Colosseum’s Radar hackathon

article-image

The offering, which launched in October 2023, had gathered just $21 million in assets