DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE DROPS CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION OF TENLEY LAW CLIENT

LOS ANGELES, June 25, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — The Department of Justice confirmed on June 24, 2024, that it would drop criminal charges against Tenley Law client Victor Belonogoff, 49, of Burlingame, California, the former CEO of digital media start-up Render Media, Inc., a business once dubbed the second fastest growing digital media company in the world by Inc. 5000. While prosecutors had preliminarily dismissed an indictment against Mr. Belonogoff in February 2023, this week’s decision by the DOJ puts an end to a nearly six-year criminal investigation.

“Victor has steadfastly maintained that he is innocent of all allegations against him and that the evidence would prove he did not defraud Render, but instead saved it,” says Belonogoff’s attorney Scott D. Tenley, a former federal prosecutor and founder of Tenley Law.  “While this process has been lengthy and difficult for my client, we are grateful to the prosecutors who thoughtfully and objectively reexamined the evidence to reach the right decision in this case.”

In April 2022, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California charged Mr. Belonogoff with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud for forming several companies that provided advertising and paid traffic services to Render.  The indictment alleged that Belonogoff’s companies did not provide legitimate services to Render and wrongfully concealed Belonogoff’s ownership interest in those companies.  Belonogoff’s companies, however, generated revenue of over $7 million for Render on nearly one billion unique pageviews.  The traffic and revenue from Belonogoff’s companies moved Render from the brink of failure in 2013 to a valuation of $50 million less than four years later.

In February 2023, just weeks before the trial was scheduled to begin, the government dismissed without prejudice the indictment against Mr. Belonogoff in order to conduct further investigation into exculpatory evidence provided by Mr. Belonogoff’s attorneys that contradicted and undermined the core allegations of wrongdoing.  Over the next 14 months, Belonogoff’s team continued to provide evidence and information to prosecutors confirming that he had always acted appropriately, within the confines of his contractual agreements with the business and its shareholders, and that Render had in fact benefited substantially from the services Mr. Belonogoff’s companies provided.  This ultimately led to this week’s decision by the Department of Justice to close its investigation of Belonogoff without further criminal charges.

In conjunction with its decision about Mr. Belonogoff, the Department of Justice also took the rare step of dismissing with prejudice charges against Render employee Aryeh Kluger, who had been charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud.  Mr. Kluger, 36, of Dallas, Texas, had entered a guilty plea and was scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Steven V. Wilson on December 2, 2024, where he faced up to five years in federal prison.  When the dismissal order is entered by Judge Wilson, Mr. Kluger will also be cleared of all allegations of wrongdoing.

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SOURCE Tenley Law