United States v. Carmona

── United States v. Carmona ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Date: April 15, 2026 Category: General 24-2784-cr (L) United States v. Carmona UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL. 1 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the 2 Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 3 15th day of April, two thousand twenty-six. 4 5 Present: 6 DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, 7 Chief Judge, 8 BARRINGTON D. PARKER, 9 MYRNA PÉREZ, 10 Circuit Judges. 11 _____________________________________ 12 13 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 14 15 Appellee, 16 v. 24-2784 (Lead) 17 24-2977 (Con) 18 24-3264 (Con) 19 MARCO RUIZ OCHOA, MOSES VALDEZ, JUAN 20 ARELLANO, 21 22 Defendants, 23 24 DAVID CARMONA, DAVID BREND, GUSTAVO RODRIGUEZ, 25 26 Defendants-Appellants. 27 _____________________________________ 28 29 For Appellee: T. JOSIAH PERTZ, Michael D. Maimin, Jacob R. 30 Fiddelman, Assistant United States Attorneys for Jay 31 Clayton, United States Attorney for the Southern 32 District of New York, New York, NY. 1  1 For Defendants-Appellants: RICHARD D. WILLSTATTER, Green & Willstatter, 2 White Plains, NY, for Defendant-Appellant David 3 Carmona. 4 5 PETER J. TOMAO, Esq., Garden City, NY, for 6 Defendant-Appellant David Brend. 7 8 JEFFREY COHN, Esq., New York, NY, for Defendant- 9 Appellant Gustavo Rodriguez. 10 11 12 Appeal from judgments of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New 13 York (Rochon, J.). 14 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND 15 DECREED that the judgments of the district court are AFFIRMED. 16 Defendants-Appellants David Carmona, David Brend, and Gustavo Rodriguez appeal from 17 amended judgments of conviction entered on January 28, 2025 as to Carmona and February 28, 18 2025 as to Brend and Rodriguez by the United States District Court for the Southern District of 19 New York. 20 This appeal concerns the IcomTech cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme. IcomTech purported to 21 be a cryptocurrency-focused multi-level marketing (“MLM”) scheme. Instead, it was a fraud. 22 Defendants-Appellants are the founder of IcomTech, David Carmona; its website designer, 23 Gustavo Rodriguez; and one of IcomTech’s top promoters, David Brend. Carmona, Rodriguez, 24 and Brend, along with several non-appellant defendants, were indicted in the Southern District of 25 New Y