A former San Francisco venture capitalist was convicted by a federal jury Thursday of various charges for defrauding investors over $18 million in investments, federal prosecutors said.
Michael Brent Rothenberg, 39, was found guilty of wire fraud, money laundering, bank fraud, and making false statements to a bank, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a statement.
Rothenberg, dubbed by some as “Silicon Valley’s Party Animal,” defrauded investors in two of the venture capital funds that he managed in 2015 and 2016, according to prosecutors. The jury found that he committed wire fraud in February 2016 linked to a $2 million investment made in a company he owned named Bend Reality LLC, and that he committed money laundering by transferring a large portion of those proceeds to various bank accounts.
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