Michele Beckwith Acting U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California
A federal grand jury has indicted David Hardcastle, 61, of Fresno, on charges of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and substantive wire fraud. The indictment was unsealed following his arrest, with an initial court appearance scheduled for the same day. Andrew Adler, 31, from Greenwich, Connecticut, is also implicated in the case. He has entered a plea agreement to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and will do so next month.
The charges stem from activities between December 2022 and May 2023 involving loans made to Bitwise Industries by Hardcastle and Adler through their entity Startop Investments LLC. They allegedly provided approximately $20 million in hard money loans to Bitwise and syndicated these loans to other investors. Court documents reveal that they altered loan documents to show lower interest obligations than actual and forged Bitwise Co-CEO Jake Soberal's signature on these documents.
Hardcastle and Adler reportedly received substantial origination fees from these transactions and stood to gain more undisclosed profits had the loans been repaid. One particular loan included a secure interest reserve of about $700,000 used without investor authorization for another investment managed by them. When Bitwise collapsed in May 2023 without repaying the loans, investors faced significant financial losses.
The investigation is led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation with prosecution by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Barton, Henry Carbajal III, and Cody Chapple.
If convicted on conspiracy charges alone, both defendants face up to 20 years in prison plus fines of $250,000 each. Hardcastle faces additional penalties for substantive wire fraud charges if found guilty. Sentencing will be at the court's discretion considering statutory factors and guidelines. It is important to note that all charges are allegations until proven beyond reasonable doubt.
