- A Manhattan federal judge declared a mistrial in the case of James and Anton Peraire-Bueno.
- The MIT-trained brothers had been on trial since mid-October over a 12-second, $25M crypto trade.
- The deadlocked jury complained deliberations had led to spontaneous tears and "sleepless nights."
A Manhattan federal judge on Friday declared a mistrial in the case of two MIT-trained brothers on trial for a 12-second trade that netted them $25 million on the Ethereum blockchain.
The judge ended the trial of James and Anton Peraire-Bueno after the jury's five men and seven women pleaded in a lengthy note for deliberations to end, saying the case had become an emotional strain and they could not reach a unanimous verdict.
Half of the jurors "spontaneously broke down in tears" on Thursday, and some jurors were complaining of "multiple nights of sleeplessness," they told the judge in the note.
"We are unanimously of the belief that we are not making any progress," the jury foreperson wrote at the end of the note.
"There's nothing in the note to indicate that if I hold them over until Monday, that anybody will change the result here," US District Court Judge Jessica G. L. Clarke told the parties before bringing the jury out to send them home.
Prosecutors did not immediately say if they will seek a retrial. But the reprieve — temporary though it may be — left the two brothers, their lawyers, and their parents smiling and exchanging embraces in the courtroom.
The note was the second time the jury sent a message to the judge on Friday saying they were unable to reach a verdict.
The MIT-educated men were accused of tricking a trio of cryptocurrency traders out of $25 million in a blindingly fast transaction.
Federal prosecutors described the brothers' 12-second, April 2023 maneuver as a "first of its kind" blockchain heist, but defense lawyers noted that many in crypto circles hailed them as heroes for taking money from "predatory" traders in the "brutally competitive," bot-eat-bot world of Ethereum.
"They took on risk and enjoyed tremendous success," defense lawyer Daniel Nathan Marx told the jury in closing arguments. "They should be celebrated, not villainized by the prosecution."
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