Crypto Investment Co. Accused Of Funding Fraudsters
Written by Sydney Price | Oct 7, 2025 | Uncategorized | Print PDF
Law360 (October 3, 2025, 7:03 PM EDT) — A Georgia investor has filed a lawsuit against a private equity firm and its management, alleging that she lost her $200,000 investment in a cryptocurrency arbitrage to an international fraud scheme enabled by the firm’s managers.
In a complaint filed Wednesday, Mary Beth Strawn claimed individual defendants Josh Kirk, Alan Napier and Tyler Ogden used Solida Equity Partners LLC, a purported pooled cryptocurrency investment vehicle, to commit fraud.
Strawn alleges that after she invested $200,000 in Solida in June 2024, she learned that she was the only investor and that her money was being funneled to other countries by contractors she was never informed would be involved with Solida.
She said the defendants are her husband’s professional connections. When pitching the investment opportunity to Strawn and her husband, she said, the defendants represented themselves as having exclusive control over Solida’s proprietary trading software. But, Strawn alleged, Solida had outsourced operations to software developers Mike Boggs and James Boyd, whom she described as “bad actors.”
After investing her money, Strawn did not communicate with the defendants for a year, she said. When attempting to access the status of her investments online this past June, the portal appeared to be experiencing technical issues, she added.
Despite assurances from the defendants that her investment was “doing fine,” Strawn said she later learned that Boggs and Boyd were “running an elaborate fraudulent scheme.”
“Plaintiff learned that Mr. Boggs, with the assistance of Mr. Boyd, funneled investments from entities like Solida and other investors to overseas entities in foreign countries such as China and Ukraine, and other domestic individuals or entities — all the while leading investors to believe their money was being invested, traded, and earning returns,” the suit said.
Boggs and Boyd aren’t defendants in Strawn’s suit. However, the duo is targeted in a pending lawsuit in Texas federal court from several parties, including Solida and Kirk, over allegations that they “orchestrated an elaborate crypto currency fraud scheme under the guise of a proprietary trading platform that promised daily returns and ironclad security,” according to Strawn.
Strawn alleges that the individual defendants knowingly misrepresented the control they had over Solida’s software.
“Defendants, rather than using their own proprietary trading software or conducting their own independent market research, blindly handed Plaintiff’s money to third parties (Mr. Boyd and Mr. Boggs) to invest as those parties saw fit,” Strawn alleged.
Strawn said that she has not recovered her $200,000 and that the defendants “continue to live affluent lifestyles,” which they display in social media posts.
She accused the defendants of fraud, breaching their fiduciary duties and negligence. She seeks $200,000 in compensatory damages, in addition to punitive damages and rescission of the subscription agreement she signed in connection with her investment.
Representatives of the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.
Strawn is represented by Joshua A. Mayes, Catherine C. Sullivan and Jane Ashley Ravry of Robbins Alloy Belinfante Littlefield LLC.
Counsel information for the defendants was not immediately available on Friday.
The case is Strawn v. Solida Equity Partners LLC et al., case number 1:25-cv-05634, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.
–Editing by Nick Siwek.