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A man in Columbia County has been sentenced to prison for selling encrypted mining computers that were not shipped and lost contact

A Columbia County man, Drawdy, has been sentenced to federal prison after pleading guilty to failing to deliver expensive computer equipment after selling it to more than 40 customers. U.S. District Court Judge J. Randal Hall also ordered Drawdy to pay restitution totaling more than $1.10 million and receive three years of supervised release upon completion of his sentence. From August 2021 to April 2022, Drawdy participated in an online cryptocurrency discussion forum and received over $1.1 million from at least 42 victims who believed they were paying Drawdy to provide them with cryptocurrency "mining" computers. However, instead of delivering the computers, Drawdy pocketed the payments and eventually stopped contacting customers. In some cases, he would offer partial refunds, but asked customers to pay a "handling fee" to get a refund - then neither refund nor provide the computers, while stopping all contact with customers.