(Reuters) - A Manhattan federal jury found two men guilty on Wednesday of deceiving U.S. banks to keep them from realizing their customers were using their payment cards to order marijuana deliveries from Eaze Technologies Inc.

Following a three-week trial before U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, the panel convicted Hamid (Ray) Akhavan, 42, and Ruben Weigand, 38, on one count each of conspiracy to commit bank fraud after a little more than a day of deliberations.

The jury had heard during the trial that the two men helped get $150 million in marijuana payments past banks and card payment networks, which have policies prohibiting marijuana transactions, between 2016 and 2019.

Attorneys for the defendants had argued that the banks and card networks tacitly approve of cannabis sales. The defendants are scheduled to be sentenced on June 25.

Christopher Tayback of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who represents Akhavan, said on Wednesday that they were disappointed in the verdict and hope to have it overturned.

"We believe the evidence established that the banks were and remain complicit in the processing of marijuana payments by credit and debit cards," he said.

Michael Gilbert of Dechert, who represents Weigand, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The trial was one of the first to be held in person when the courthouse resumed modified operations after postponing face-to-face proceedings due to an increase in COVID-19 infections in New York over the fall and winter.

One of the original jurors hearing the case was excused and replaced with an alternate after testing positive for the virus. The trial continued when the remaining jurors tested negative at court.

During the trial, prosecutors called witnesses from Eaze, a San Francisco-based online cannabis marketplace, including former CEO James Patterson who pled guilty to conspiracy and entered a cooperation agreement.

Patterson told jurors he was part of the scheme to pass Eaze transactions through fake businesses to prevent card issuers from reporting suspected marijuana transactions to Visa and Mastercard, which might otherwise remove Eaze's merchant accounts from their networks.

Representatives from Visa and Mastercard also took the stand for the government and told jurors they did not allow marijuana businesses to access their card networks, while employees from banks, including Bank of America, testified that they needed accurate transaction information to manage the risks associated with marijuana. The drug remains illegal under federal law despite an increasing number of states, including California, allowing its sale and use.

The defendants' lawyers had argued that the U.S. card-issuing banks, which prosecutors had to show were defrauded in order to win a conviction, did not care whether customers were buying marijuana. They called witnesses who testified that Eaze customers can still use Visa and Mastercard for payments on the site through a third-party digital wallet provider.

The case is U.S. v. Weigand et al., No. 1:20-cr-00188, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

For the government: Nicholas Folly, Tara La Morte and Emily Deininger of the U.S Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

For Akhavan: William Burck, Christopher Tayback and Sara Clark of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan

For Weigand: Michael Gilbert, Shriram Harid, Steven Pellechi and Amy Lesperance of Dechert and Michael Artan