Must an investor have met a product’s founder before that founder’s representations can matter to the investor’s defense? That question sits near the center of Nevin Shetty’s September 15, 2025 reply concerning proposed testimony from Do Kwon. The filing argues that public representations can shape an investment decision even when the people involved have never spoken personally.
The distinction gives the document a useful focus. Rather than treating every dispute about cryptocurrency as a debate about whether the asset class is good or bad, Shetty’s lawyers asked what information was available at the relevant time and how that information related to the government’s theory. Their answer formed part of a wider request for testimony and a trial continuance.
A reply organized around relevance
The consolidated reply on Kwon’s proposed testimony, filed as Docket 174, followed objections to the defense’s effort to secure the witness. It addressed relevance, privilege, scheduling and a sanctions request. Its opening section assembled excerpts from earlier government filings that, according to the defense, had emphasized the risk of the UST investment.
That compilation served a particular argumentative purpose. Counsel wanted to show that the anticipated testimony answered a subject the prosecution itself had placed in dispute. The defense claimed that risk could not be central when describing the alleged wrongdoing but irrelevant when Shetty sought evidence about how the investment had been represented.
The quoted passages remain quotations selected and presented by an opposing party. Reading the reply does not establish that the prosecution conceded the defense’s larger interpretation. What it establishes is the structure of Shetty’s relevance argument: identify the proposition used against him, then explain why the requested evidence could answer it.
Personal contact and public information
The reply reports an objection that Kwon had never met Shetty or Fabric’s board. The defense responded that personal contact was unnecessary to its proposed explanation. Investors, counsel argued, could rely on publicly disseminated representations about a financial product without meeting the person responsible for those representations.
This is a narrower proposition than saying that public enthusiasm proves an individual acted honestly. The existence of a representation and a particular person’s knowledge of it remain distinct questions. The filing’s point was that the absence of a meeting did not, by itself, dispose of the potential relevance of testimony about the product’s public presentation.
Counsel identified subjects they expected Kwon to address: UST’s represented attributes, its supposed relationship to the dollar, changes in those attributes and information available to outsiders. These were proposed areas of examination. The reply is not a transcript, and it cannot establish what Kwon would actually have said under questioning.
A dispute about how to present good faith
The lawyers also resisted a demand, as they characterized it, that Shetty identify particular information he reviewed or submit a declaration before the proposed testimony could be considered. They connected that objection to the burden of proof and Shetty’s right not to testify. In their view, he should be able to present relevant evidence through other witnesses.
The argument matters because a defense can involve more than the defendant’s own account. Documents, surrounding circumstances and testimony from other people can be offered to support an inference about state of mind. The defense wanted room to make that kind of case, while leaving the prosecution free to challenge the inference it sought.
That does not mean every suggested inference must be accepted or every proposed witness admitted. The reply was asking the court to recognize the connection between the anticipated evidence and the disputed issues. It was also resisting what counsel viewed as an unnecessarily restrictive route for presenting that connection.
Why the reply returned to scheduling
Relevance alone would not solve the defense’s practical problem. Kwon intended to invoke Fifth Amendment rights, according to the filings. The reply therefore renewed the position that his then-scheduled sentencing and the terms of his plea agreement would change his availability. Counsel linked that position to the requested continuance.
The document also answered objections about delay and fading memories. Shetty’s lawyers argued that memory concerns affected both sides and that the potential loss of an important defense witness deserved substantial weight. They disputed Kwon’s request for sanctions and described their research and communications with his counsel as a good-faith effort to resolve the witness question.
Those sections set out the defense’s position on disputed requests. Their account concerns proposed testimony and contested privilege, with the desired rulings still left to the court. Its constructive value lies in showing the specific reasons the defense gave for pursuing the witness despite opposition.
A more precise account of the defense
Commentary about the Terra/Luna collapse in TheStreet’s crypto newsroom supplies a broader discussion of investor perceptions and hindsight. The September reply translates a related concern into an evidentiary request. It asks whether testimony about public representations could assist the jury in evaluating Shetty’s position, even without a personal relationship between the proposed witness and defendant.
The subsequent outcome remains part of the record: Shetty was convicted of four wire-fraud counts in November 2025 and sentenced to two years in prison in March 2026. A close reading of the reply does not reverse those events. It explains a particular defense effort that preceded them and preserves the difference between a requested opportunity and a judicial finding.
Shetty’s public website connects readers with selected filings and his own account. This reply adds something more specific than a general expression of disagreement with the prosecution. It documents an effort to make evidence about the information environment available for adversarial testing, and it asks a clear question about relevance that readers can evaluate without inventing testimony or assuming an outcome.
