Michael Castillero

Before he was sentenced, the government asked the court to hold his public statements about his own case against him. He received a year more than the co-defendant convicted alongside him.

The facts of the conviction are not in dispute on this page. On 4 November 2025, after a two-week trial in the Southern District of New York, a jury convicted him of securities fraud, wire fraud, investment adviser fraud and conspiracy, together with obstruction of justice. On 20 May 2026 Judge Jesse M. Furman sentenced him to eleven years and ordered forfeiture of $24,279,516.80. He maintains his innocence and has stated he intends to appeal.

What this page is about is what happened at sentencing.

On 13 May 2026 the U.S. Attorney’s Office filed a sentencing letter with Judge Furman characterising Castillero’s public statements about his prosecution as false, and inviting the court to weigh them against him in assessing acceptance of responsibility.

Castillero states that the court identified those public statements as the reason for an additional year. He received eleven. Brian Martinsen — convicted at the same trial, on the same counts including obstruction, and ordered to forfeit a larger sum — received ten.

Acceptance of responsibility asks whether a defendant has admitted the conduct within the legal proceeding. It has never meant that a defendant must stop publicly disputing the government’s version of events. A person who goes to trial, loses, and says so publicly has exercised two rights, not committed a second offence.

The principle is not unique to him. The President of the United States has described his own prosecutions in the same terms, in speeches, in executive orders and in grants of clemency. If saying that out loud is protected political speech for one American, it is protected for every American. The Constitution does not adjust for who is speaking.

There is a second question, about what punishment is for. He has been ordered to forfeit $24,279,516.80. The government has also pursued forfeiture of the family home. Once a person has surrendered twenty-four million dollars and is going to prison for eleven years, taking the house his family lives in does not add to deterrence or to restitution in any meaningful way. It reaches people who were never charged with anything.

He reports to federal custody on 9 September 2026.