Mark Karpeles seeks appeal over Tokyo District Court ruling

Mark Karpeles, former CEO at Mt. Gox cryptocurrency exchange, is appealing his conviction, AP news writes. Although recently cleared of embezzlement and breach of trust charges, Karpeles was found guilty of tampering with records by Tokyo District Court and given a suspended sentence. According to the court, he manipulated the data to cause harm to his clients, thus betraying their trust.  

“I believe appealing to the judgment is appropriate so that I can be judged again in full consideration of all the facts,” Karpeles stated.

Karpeles’ lawyer Nobuyasu Ogata maintains that his client acted in Mt. Gox’s customers best interest and was trying to decrease the damage caused by the hack. He also said the court blamed Karpeles for the hack as it did not understand how cryptocurrency exchanges operated.