WASHINGTON, October 29 (RIA Novosti) — The US prosecutors asked the court to postpone the trial for the alleged Russian cybercriminal Roman Seleznev until May 4, 2015.
“Because of the complexity of this case and the volume of discovery, the defense cannot, with the exercise of due diligence, be prepared for trial before May 2015,” assistant prosecutor Seth Wilkinson said in a declaration submitted to the court.
“Victoria Ericksen, the Court’s in-court deputy, advised me that the Court is available for trial commencing May 4, 2015,” Wilkinson added.
Seleznev is likely to remain under custody should the trial be rescheduled.
According to the acting US attorney Annette Hayes, the discovery in Seleznev’s case will be “voluminous".
“In addition to the 4 terrabytes of evidence that will be produced by this office [the US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington], I have been informed that an additional 17 terrabytes of evidence will be produced by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada,” Hayes said.
On July 5, Roman Seleznev was detained by US secret service agents in the Maldives and brought to Guam, and later to Washington. The Russian Foreign Ministry and Seleznev's father Valery describe the arrest as a kidnapping.
Earlier in October, a US court in Seattle has indicted Seleznev on 11 additional counts, bringing the total number of charges to 40.
US prosecutors implicated Seleznev in the theft and sale of more than 2 million credit card numbers. They claim that between October 2009 and October 2013 Seleznev allegedly hacked into retail point of sale systems and installed malicious software to steal credit card numbers from various businesses. He may face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
