There is an important difference between saying an accusation is untrue and saying that, even on the accusation’s own terms, it does not describe the crime charged. Nevin Shetty’s June 2024 motion to dismiss took the second route. His lawyers asked the court to examine the legal sufficiency of the indictment before deciding disputed facts at trial. That procedural choice is central to reading the document accurately.
The motion filed on June 7, 2024 argued that the indictment did not adequately allege a scheme to obtain Fabric’s money or property through fraud. For that purpose, counsel worked from the indictment’s allegations. They were testing what followed legally if those allegations were accepted for the motion, rather than admitting their truth for every purpose or asking the court to resolve the entire evidentiary record.
A question about the accusation’s structure
The motion separated the indictment’s account into several parts. It identified the transfers to HighTower, the investment arrangement, Shetty’s interest in that business, alleged nondisclosure and the company’s investment preferences. Counsel then asked how those parts combined to satisfy the charged offense. The argument was that describing a troubling transaction was not enough without identifying the required criminal theory.
This is a useful discipline for anyone reading a prosecution document. A factual allegation may explain motive, another may establish the movement of money, and another may concern disclosure. Their legal functions are not interchangeable. The motion sought to make those functions explicit and to challenge what the defense considered gaps between the narrative and the statutory elements.
Shetty’s lawyers also emphasized that the indictment called the transaction an investment. They argued that its description of an arrangement intended to generate returns for Fabric and HighTower did not allege an object of depriving Fabric of its property. That was counsel’s interpretation of the accusation. Merely using the word investment does not settle whether a transaction can involve fraud.
The first argument concerns self-interest
One section addressed the allegation that Shetty stood to benefit through his ownership interest in HighTower. Counsel characterized the prosecution’s theory as undisclosed self-dealing and invoked Skilling v. United States. Their position was that the government was trying to treat a conflict of interest as a sufficient basis for a property-fraud charge.
Skilling requires careful description here. Its limitation on honest-services fraud concerned bribery and kickbacks. The decision did not establish that a person with an undisclosed financial interest could never commit property fraud. The relevant question in Shetty’s motion was whether the indictment alleged the additional elements necessary for the offense actually charged, rather than relying on the conflict alone.
That distinction gives the defense argument its most precise form. A personal interest can be relevant evidence without serving as a substitute for every required element. Counsel asked the court to identify what property the alleged scheme sought to obtain and how the indictment connected that object to the claimed deception. The motion challenged the connection, not the existence of money in the transaction.
The second argument concerns information
A further section focused on allegations that Fabric lacked information about the investment’s nature. The defense relied on Ciminelli v. United States, which rejected treating the right to valuable economic information as the property interest required by the right-to-control theory. Counsel argued that a complaint about information needed to make a different investment decision fell within that rejected approach.
The distinction is between information as the alleged property and deception used to obtain actual property. Ciminelli does not erase the significance of false statements or omissions when a valid property-fraud theory is otherwise established. The motion’s argument was that the indictment had not adequately made that further showing. Readers can understand that position without converting it into a rule that nondisclosure never matters.
The NACDL amicus brief later supported the defense’s challenge to the reach of federal fraud law. It added an institutional argument about statutory limits and fair notice. The brief supports a description of the legal position advanced on Shetty’s behalf; it is not a ruling that the motion was correct.
Read the historical motion with the later law
The June motion also discussed the relationship between an investment’s intended purpose and its later loss. That part of the argument should be read alongside the Supreme Court’s May 2025 decision in Kousisis v. United States. Kousisis permits fraudulent-inducement liability without an intended net economic loss. An expectation that a transaction will benefit the counterparty therefore does not provide a categorical answer to a fraud charge.
The timing matters. Shetty’s lawyers wrote this motion before Kousisis was decided. A fair account can explain their historical argument while acknowledging that later legal development. The reader should not be left with the impression that hoping an investment will succeed necessarily defeats criminal liability, or that a loss necessarily establishes it.
The motion was denied on December 4, 2024, as the defense’s later reconsideration filing records. A jury subsequently convicted Shetty of four wire-fraud counts on November 7, 2025. On March 5, 2026, he received a two-year prison sentence. The dismissal request is part of the litigation history, not evidence that the prosecution ended at this stage.
Shetty’s website brings together his public account and case materials. Reading the motion itself adds something more exact than a general statement of support: it shows counsel asking which alleged facts performed which legal work. That remains a valuable way to understand his defense. It allows a serious argument about statutory boundaries to be considered on its own terms while keeping the later verdict, the limits of the authorities and the difference between allegation and admission in view.
