WASHINGTON, October 10 (RIA Novosti) - A US court in Seattle will arraign Russian national Roman Seleznev on the new 11 charges of wire fraud on October 16, and might also consider a trial postponement, a spokeswoman US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington told RIA Novosti Friday.
Spokeswoman Emily Langli said it "is possible with the new indictment that the defense will ask for additional time to prepare for trial," which is currently slated for November 3.
"That likely will be discussed at arraignment," she said, adding "right now the arraignment on the new indictment is scheduled for Thursday 10/16 – it could move to Friday 10/17."
Langli refused to comment on a potential jail term for the Russian citizen, who is believed to face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty.
"The potential prison term is impacted by a number of things," she explained, "but generally not as much by the number of counts or the maximum penalties they carry. The characteristics of the crime and of the individual defendant are factors considered by the judge at sentencing."
Earlier in the day, the US court bumped up the number of charges against Seleznev to 40 counts. The Russian is accused of hatching a scheme to "hack into businesses and steal credit card information for later sale over the Internet on 'carding' websites," the Department of Justice said, summing up the entire bulk of charges as "hacking, wire fraud, credit card theft and identity theft."
US prosecutors implicate 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.
On July 5, Roman Seleznev was detained by US secret service agents in the Maldives and brought to Guam, and later to Washington. He may face up to 30 years in prison if found guilty. He is now scheduled for trial on November 3, 2014.
The Russian Foreign Ministry and Seleznev's father Valery describe the arrest as a "kidnapping."
