A Seattle startup’s ex-CFO is set to spend two years behind bars, followed by three years of supervised release, for wire fraud.
Nevin Shetty, formerly the finance chief of e-commerce startup Fabric, was handed down the sentencing from Judge Tana Lin on Thursday. In a news release issued by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd, Lin was quoted as saying that Shetty’s actions had “significant and severe effects” on his former employer.
According to prosecutors, Shetty funneled $35 million in funds from Fabric to a cryptocurrency platform he ran as a side business. Known as HighTower Treasury, that business had “no other outside customers,” according to Floyd.
“In April 2022, shortly after he was told he could not continue as CFO at his employer due to concerns about his performance, Shetty secretly transferred the funds out of his employer’s account,” Floyd’s news release stated.
Prosecutors, who had sought a nine-year sentence for Shetty, said that no other Fabric executives or board members knew about the transfers, which were accomplished via wire transfers from a Chase Bank near Shetty’s home.
Judge Lin said that Shetty’s actions “threw into complete turmoil the lives of those 60 people (who were laid off).”
“You almost put the company out of business,” she said, according to Floyd’s release. “You were playing with money that wasn’t yours.”
When Shetty was sentenced in November 2025, his defense team told CFO.com that they planned to “vigorously pursue an appeal.” Shetty’s defense lawyers didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on his sentencing on Friday.
In an email, Emily Langlie, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Seattle, said the defense “indicated in court yesterday that they are planning to appeal.”
“They also indicated that they will ask that he not serve his prison time until rulings on the appeal,” Langlie said. “However, the judge asked for briefing on that issue and will determine whether he will remain on bond pending an appeal after reading the briefs, and possible argument.”
Shetty’s case, which began in May 2023, had raised concerns about the definition of wire fraud. In an August 2024 amicus brief, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers said that the case “reflects yet another improper attempt by the government to stretch the wire-fraud statute beyond its breaking point.”
The group went on to say that the government was “attempting to criminalize an allegedly self-interested investment decision made by an executive with the authority to make such an investment — simply because he allegedly did not disclose complete and accurate information to others at the company.”
