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Bates News  |  02-03-23

Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Erin Baskett, CPA, CGMA

Erin Baskett is a Bates Testifying and Consulting Expert and the founder and CEO of Sine Qua Non Global. She is a financial, compliance, and operational executive with significant experience in accounting, auditing, crypto, business consulting, advisory, private placements, investment banking, traditional brokerage, capital markets, fintech and financial services, with a solid knowledge of U.S. GAAP, tax, IFRS, FINRA, NFA and SEC rules in companies with both domestic and international presence serving both retail and institutional.

Over the past 10+ years, Erin has served as CEO, CCO, COO and/ or CFO across nearly a dozen firms congruently covering traditional brokerage, advisory, fintech and crypto/ NFT. She holds multiple certifications, including Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA), and Certified Human Resources Specialist (CHRS), and regulatory licenses. 

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Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Patrick Cox

Patrick Cox is a Bates Testifying and Consulting Expert based in San Diego, California, with extensive experience in Retail Securities, Investigations, Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Compliance. He also advises on product due diligence matters, including cryptocurrencies, for regulated entities. Prior to joining Bates, Patrick was Executive Vice President and General Counsel for Advice, Litigation and Regulatory Strategy with LPL Financial, where he was responsible for all litigation, regulatory, and legal advice matters for the firm’s business units. He and his team also conducted internal investigations for the firm’s integrity hotline and other matters. Patrick was an ex-officio member of the firm’s Risk Oversight Committee for many years and provided ongoing advice to members of the Management Committee with reports to the Board of Directors on special issues. 

Patrick spent 20 years representing Morgan Stanley, Ameriprise Financial, and LPL Financial and their employees, and he handled hundreds of matters ranging from wrongful termination, raiding and recruiting, retail arbitrations, class actions, shareholder actions and internal investigations. He also worked on many due diligence and acquisition issues, both at LPL and Ameriprise. Prior to working in-house at Morgan Stanley, Patrick served as a civil litigator, an Adjunct Associate Professor at Fordham University School of Law, a law clerk at the U.S. Court of International Trade, and an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan. An experienced executive and advocate, he received his Juris Doctor from Fordham and his Bachelor of Arts in English from Loyola Marymount University.

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Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Connie Fenchel, CAMS

Connie Fenchel is a Bates Strategic Advisor and Expert with more than 45 years of government and private sector experience in law enforcement, financial crimes, regulatory compliance, anti-money laundering (AML), and sanctions. Her expertise includes independent reviews and investigations, risk assessments, domestic and international training, expert testimony, and AML program development and remediation.

A former Deputy Director in the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Connie led the FinCEN effort to administer the recordkeeping, reporting, and AML provisions of the BSA and USA PATRIOT Act. Before working at FinCEN, Connie has a lengthy career with the U.S. Customs Service in several senior-level positions. Upon retirement from the government, Connie established AML Experts, Inc., an independent consulting firm assisting banks and non-banks in complying with AML laws and regulations. She has worked with hundreds of banks, credit unions, cryptocurrency companies, payment processors, money transmitters, precious metal dealers and others providing consultation and training.

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Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Alison Jimenez, CAMS

Alison K. Jimenez is a Bates Testifying Expert who utilizes her extensive background in the securities industry to consult and provide expert witness testimony on complex financial matters involving Compliance and Anti-Money Laundering. Based in Tampa, Florida, Alison has experience providing quantitative witness testimony in retail securities litigation matters, having testified at FINRA arbitration, private arbitration and federal court proceedings regarding securities analysis and account activity.

She has been retained as an expert on AML issues in federal and state courts, arbitrations, Investor-State Dispute Settlement, and regulatory enforcement actions on a variety of financial crime issues including market manipulation, corruption, Ponzi schemes, and high frequency trading. Alison has also served as an independent auditor to plan and conduct AML audits of financial institutions, verify compliance with PATRIOT Act, Suspicious Activity Report filing requirements and other rules/laws. She holds a master’s degree in economics and is a Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist and a Cryptocurrency Tracing Certified Examiner.

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Meet Bates Testifying Experts in Blockchain and Digital Assets, including Crypto and Virtual Currencies

Annemarie McAvoy

Annemarie McAvoy is a Bates Testifying and Consulting Expert in financial crimes, including Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Sanctions, Cryptocurrency, Anti-Bribery and Corruption compliance, internal investigations, fraud detection and prevention and crisis management. She has held in-house legal and compliance positions at Citigroup and Morgan Stanley and was a Senior Manager in Ernst & Young’s Financial Crimes Compliance Unit. Early in her career, Annemarie was an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and, later, specialized in large financial crime cases at the Kings County (NY) District Attorney’s Office Rackets/Investigations Unit. She teaches classes on financial crime at Columbia’s Graduate School of International and Public Affairs and has also taught as an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School.

Annemarie has appeared for years as an on-air legal expert for major television and radio networks, is sometimes quoted by media outlets such as the Associated Press and moneylaundering.com, and authored articles published in forbes.com, foxnews.com and Family Security Matters. She is a member of the Association of Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (“ACAMS”) and the NYC Bar Association’s Compliance Committee and its Financial Crimes Subcommittee, as well as its Small Law Firm Committee. She is also a member of the Global Digital and Cryptocurrency Association (“Global DCA”) and its Public Policy and Regulation Committee. Annemarie has successfully completed the Global DCA’s Digital Asset Professional Certification Program, and she is a member of the NJ Digital Assets Working Group.

Full Bio

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