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DMCA Update:  It has come to the attention of the USA Herald that John Monarch has submitted multiple DMCA takedowns in an attempt to suppress this article.   John Monarch does not own the photo in this story nor does he own the derivative of this photo.   

🚨 Alert 1/4/21 🚨  The SEC has taken legal action to shut down the Shipchain ICO scam and return money to investors 

According to a lawsuit pending in South Carolina, John Monarch, CEO of Shipchain (which has sold $30M in cryptocurrency this month and is now raising an additional $15M via ICO offerings), is expected to stand trial for his alleged role in a 2013 cryptocurrency blackmail scheme this year.

It is alleged that Monarch, whom is a self-proclaimed cryptocurrency expert, blackmailed Pa. businessman Richard Gorman for $500,000 in cryptocurrency in December, 2013. When Gorman refused to pay the cryptocurrency ransom, the lawsuit alleges that Monarch and co-conspirators waged an online smear campaign against Gorman's employees, clients, vendors, and children.

Monarch's co-defendant and one-time best friend, Karl Steinborn, was held liable for $3.1M in damages and subsequently committed suicide in 2016 on Gorman's birthday.   The case against Monarch, which was originally filed in Federal Court in Pennsylvania, will be tried in Greenville, South Carolina.  Gorman has retained the state's top litigators, Robert Goings and Kirby Shealy, to try the case.

BlankRome LLP and Kroll Investigative Services were retained by Gorman in Pennsylvania, where the case was originally filed, and were successful in tracing the blackmail back to Monarch & Steinborn, according to the lawsuit.    The lawsuit alleges that Monarch and Steinborn used the pseudonym "Ilya" and operated a blackmail site called PerformOutsider.com.   PerformOutsider.com prominently listed Monarch's fulfillment business, Direct Outbound, in its advertising section. Additionally Monarch was PerformOutsider's first follower on social media.

https://web.archive.org/web/20131127193502/https://www.performoutsider.com:80/

Timeline of Events

In November of 2013 Gorman would send out what he claims was an innocuous tweet about competition, which at the time Gorman did not know who John Monarch was and had never heard of Monarch's company Direct Outbound.