Securities Regulation Daily Wrap Up, ENFORCEMENT—10th Cir.: Wolf Capital founder’s prison sentence stands, (Jul 24, 2026)

By Anne Sherry, J.D.

The district court’s findings underlying a five-year prison sentence were not unreasonable.

The Tenth Circuit affirmed the criminal sentence of Wolf Capital cofounder Travis Ford. Ford was charged with orchestrating a $9 million crypto Ponzi scheme. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release. The appeals court determined that the findings on which the sentence was based were not unreasonable (U.S. v. Ford, No. 25-5171 (10th Cir. July 23, 2026)).

In his plea agreement and change-of-plea petition, Ford admitted that Wolf Capital Crypto Trading LLC received about $9.4 million in investments from about 2,800 investors. Based on these admissions, the parties agreed and stipulated for purposes of the sentencing guidelines that the offense involved at least 10 victims and a loss of between $3.5 and $9.5 million.

The presentence investigation report relied on these numbers, and the court in turn relied largely on the PSR’s calculations in imposing the statutory maximum five-year prison term plus three years supervised release. The court also ordered $175,000 in restitution to the eight victims the government had identified.

Reviewing the sentence for procedural reasonableness, the appellate panel undertook a de novo review of whether the district court abused its discretion.

The district court did not err procedurally when it relied on the stipulated loss amount and victim count to calculate Ford’s offense level under the sentencing guidelines. Absent special circumstances, a party is bound by his stipulation. And the factual findings based on the stipulated numbers were not clearly erroneous because the court is only required to make a reasonable estimate of the loss based on available information.

It was also not error for the court to adopt the more uncertain stipulated numbers instead of the $175,000 in restitution claims made by victims. Restitution for known victims and financial loss from the misconduct are not necessarily the same, and only the financial loss matters for the applicable sentencing guidelines.

The case is No. 25-5171.

Judge: Matheson, S.

Attorneys: David Hamstra, U.S. Department of Justice, for the United States of America. Benjamin Miller (Benjamin Miller Law Office) for Travis Ford.

Companies: Wolf Capital Crypto Trading LLC

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