Sann Rodrigues Claims He Doesn't Speak English. The SEC Isn't Buying It.
Facing jail time for contempt of court, Sann Rodrigues is now claiming he can't speak English—a defense that falls apart under the slightest scrutiny.
Last month, the SEC asked a judge to lock Rodrigues up. They accused him of flouting a court-ordered asset freeze that's been in place since May 2014. Rodrigues filed his response last Friday, and what followed reads like a masterclass in creative excuses.
His first excuse centers on a language barrier. Rodrigues claims he was disadvantaged compared to other defendants in the TelexFree civil case because his attorney didn't appear until June 2014—more than a month after the asset-freeze order. He says nobody explained the injunction to him in Portuguese, his native language.
The problem with this argument is obvious: if Rodrigues failed to hire a lawyer quickly, that's his problem, not the court's.
More damaging is the timeline around his accounting records. The court ordered Rodrigues to file proper accountings in 2014. He didn't comply until July 2015. When pressed on why he waited over a year, Rodrigues claims he was in criminal custody from May to July 2015 on a separate visa fraud charge. He also says he was under house arrest with electronic monitoring and couldn't identify closed accounts.
None of this explains the year-long gap before his detention began.
Before his May 2015 arrest, Rodrigues was globe-trotting to promote iFreeX, a Ponzi scheme he was running. He found plenty of time to schmooze with top US investors at company events. Somehow, filing court documents wasn't possible.
Then comes the real whopper. His lawyer wrote that Rodrigues "does not speak English" and only complied with court orders "to the best of his abilities...given his extremely limited knowledge of the English language."
This claim dissolves instantly when you examine Rodrigues' actual history. He was the top earner in TelexFree. He was a regular at company events where he mingled with American affiliate investors—many of whom are also named in the SEC lawsuit. There's no record of Rodrigues requiring an interpreter at these functions.
Court documents don't indicate he ever requested translation services during the fraud case itself. If he truly couldn't speak English, he would have flagged this early and often. Instead, he's bringing it up now, years into litigation, as a last-ditch excuse for contempt.
The pattern is clear. Rodrigues cooperates when it suits him and stalls when it doesn't. He had resources to travel internationally and build a fraudulent empire, but claims he lacked the ability to understand court orders or file basic accounting documents.
The SEC sees through it. So should the court.
🤖 Quick Answer
What language barrier claim did Sann Rodrigues present to the SEC?Rodrigues asserted he couldn't comprehend the court-ordered asset freeze because no one explained the injunction in Portuguese, his native language. He claimed disadvantage compared to other TelexFree defendants, noting his attorney appeared over a month after the May 2014 freeze order was issued.
Why did the SEC challenge Rodrigues's language defense?
The SEC's skepticism stemmed from evidence suggesting Rodrigues possessed sufficient English proficiency to understand court proceedings and legal documents. His claim of linguistic disadvantage lacked credible supporting documentation or expert testimony validating his alleged inability to comprehend English-language legal instructions and compliance requirements.
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