The Nassau County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Thursday that it has opened an investigation into allegations of election fraud in the May vote for an open seat on the Hempstead school board.
The school district has said a new election for the trustee position would be held on Aug. 17.
The DA’s office began reviewing the fraud allegations after Hempstead school officials referred findings from an internal report that found April Keys, the district clerk in charge of the election, conspired to keep incumbent Victor Pratt, her favored candidate, in office.
Austin Graff, a school district attorney appointed to investigate the alleged misconduct, found Keys failed to safeguard election materials and could not explain how ripped-up cast ballots ended up in a garbage bag recovered by Graff and Anthony Fasano, another attorney working for the Hempstead district, on May 26.
The ripped-up…
THE HASHFLARE “CLOUD MINING” PONZI SCHEME (GLOBAL/ESTONIA)
Date: February 13, 2025 (Guilty Pleas) Perpetrators: Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin
Case Description: This $577 million cryptocurrency fraud remains one of the largest digital asset scams in history, with major legal developments concluding in 2025. Potapenko and Turogin operated “Hashflare,” which they marketed as a massive cryptocurrency mining operation. Hundreds of thousands of victims worldwide purchased “mining contracts,” believing they were renting hash power to mine Bitcoin. In reality, the duo was running a sophisticated Ponzi scheme.
They created fake customer dashboards that showed “real-time” mining profits, but the money being paid out was simply the capital of newer investors. They laundered the proceeds through shell companies to purchase luxury real estate and a fleet of high-end vehicles. After a massive international investigation involving the FBI and Estonian authorities, the pair agreed to forfeit over $400 million in assets. This case underscores the “Cyber-enabled Fraud” warning issued by the FATF in early 2026: as technology evolves, the scale of fraud moves from local millions to global billions in the blink of an eye.
Link to Original: ACFE – High Profile Fraud of 2025