\n
In the Wichita courtroom, Hanes offered his only public reflection on the bank collapse. Wearing a gray suit, he walked up to the lectern, glancing nervously at his former friends in the gallery. \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he told the judge. Until the very end, he explained, he thought he was involved in a legitimate business deal. In January 2024, he told the court, he made a futile attempt to recoup the lost money, flying to Perth, Australia, where some of his nonexistent business partners had supposedly been based. He was in touch with them until the moment he landed at the airport. But no bailout materialized. It was only then, months after the bank shuttered, that he accepted he had been tricked. \u201cI\u2019ll forever struggle understanding how I was duped,\u201d Hanes said. \u201cI should have caught it, but I didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Hanes finished speaking, Judge Broomes rocked backward in his chair and turned to face the shareholders. \u201cThe best thing for you is to forgive this man,\u201d he said. \u201cLeave matters of retribution to me. That\u2019s my job, and I\u2019ll see that it\u2019s done.\u201d He sentenced Hanes to 24 years and 5 months in prison, a punishment even greater than federal prosecutors had requested. A chorus of yeses echoed from the shareholders.<\/p>\n
Hanes\u2019s shoulders slumped. As two U.S. marshals approached him, he undid his tie, slipped off his suit jacket and emptied his pockets. Behind him, the shareholders went quiet. Hanes\u2019 sister and one of his daughters clung to each other, their sobs breaking the silence. Hanes looked at them once, quickly, before the marshals handcuffed him and led him out of the room.<\/p>\n
One day last October,<\/strong> Tucker got a call from an investigator at the F.B.I. It was good news: Federal officials had recovered $8 million of the stolen funds, which had been hidden in an account full of Tether, a popular cryptocurrency. The stash was a small fraction of what Hanes stole, but it would be enough to reimburse the shareholders for nearly all the money they had invested in the bank.<\/p>\nThe jubilation Tucker might have expected to feel was tempered by sadness. His father had been in and out of the hospital, and a doctor warned that he had only days left to live. That night, Tucker went to his father\u2019s hospital room and shared what he had heard. Bill Tucker blinked a few times and then said, \u201cOh, my.\u201d He died a week later.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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The Cryptocurrency Scam That Turned a Small Town Against Itself - Frisco Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=3386\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cryptocurrency Scam That Turned a Small Town Against Itself - Frisco Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the Wichita courtroom, Hanes offered his only public reflection on the bank collapse. 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