Today, Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill appeared together in court in the Southern District of New York for a status conference.<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n This was the first time the two made a public appearance together since the US Department of Justice (DoJ) charged the two developers<\/a> with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business in April 2024. It was also the first time either of them have appeared in court since Hill appeared ahead of his bail release in July<\/a> and Rodriguez first attended a court hearing in May<\/a>.<\/p>\n The prosecution addressed the court first, stating that it had produced \u201cvoluminous batches of discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n It made the first batch available to the defense in mid-June 2024. This batch featured business records, emails and social media account information amongst other data.<\/p>\n The second batch, which it made available to the defense in mid-August 2024, featured data extractions from the devices that the DoJ seized from the two developers. The DoJ has extracted information from 15 of the 44 devices seized from Rodriguez and 25 of the 27 devices seized from Hill.<\/p>\n The prosecution also stated that it would produce a third batch of discovery containing a \u201crelatively modest\u201d amount of data soon and that it was prepared to proceed with trial.<\/p>\n Rodriguez\u2019s attorney made the case that it was premature to set a trial date, as the defense has yet to review all of the discovery made available in mid-August 2024. The defense also said that it has yet to come across any evidence showing that Rodriguez or Hill operated an unlicensed money transmitting business.<\/p>\n Hill\u2019s attorney stated that they\u2019ve received 8 terabytes worth of discovery. To put this amount of data in context, he explained that this was the equivalent of 75% of the amount of information in the Library of Congress and that, if one printed this information, one could stack the paper it was printed on \u201cto the moon and back 22 times,\u201d making the point that it would be hard to sort through and review.<\/p>\n Hill\u2019s attorney also referenced the letter from Senators Cynthia Lummis (R) and Ron Wyden (D)<\/a> in which the lawmakers stated that the DoJ\u2019s unprecedented interpretation of the US Department of the Treasury\u2019s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) statute regarding operating an unlicensed money transmitting business contradicts the intent of the rule. For this reason, he proposed a motion to dismiss the charge.<\/p>\n The judge denied this request and scheduled a follow-up hearing for December 17, 2024 at 10 AM ET.<\/p>\n In the second portion of the conference, Rodriguez\u2019s lawyer requested two modifications to Rodriguez\u2019s bail conditions. He requested that the court remove Rodriguez’s home detention mandate and that the court modify restrictions on Rodriguez\u2019s ability to transact with cryptocurrency, some of which was proceeds from Samourai. (Zack Shapiro, Legal Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI)<\/a> later explained to me that the second modification was requested in part so that Rodriguez could use bitcoin proceeds from Samourai to pay for legal fees.)<\/p>\n Rodriguez\u2019s attorney argued that home detention was \u201cunduly restrictive\u201d and \u201cunnecessary,\u201d and that Rodriguez isn\u2019t a flight risk. The defense also cited two instances in which Rodriguez had the opportunity to flee but didn\u2019t in its efforts to make the case that Rodriguez no longer needed to wear a location monitoring device.<\/p>\n The prosecution pushed back, arguing that Rodriguez\u2019s home detention was necessary to ensure that Rodriguez continued to appear for trial. It also stated that the charges being levied against Rodriguez for running a \u201ccryptocurrency money laundering business\u201d were severe and that Rodriguez was potentially facing a potential sentence of up to 25 years.<\/p>\n The prosecution went on to cite evidence from handwritten pages that it had obtained from Rodriguez\u2019s home containing details about how he would flee the country to a jurisdiction from which it would be difficult to extradite him. This information included a list including different passports as well as having $10,000 in cash, a burner phone, an unused SIM card, and various mnemonic phrases for crypto assets amongst other items.<\/p>\n Rodriguez\u2019s lawyer argued that this plan applied to what Rodriguez would do in the case of a more general emergency, while the prosecution argued that this was Rodriguez\u2019s current escape plan.<\/p>\n The prosecution stated that it was \u201ca pretty good plan\u201d and that it doesn\u2019t feel that it\u2019s appropriate to stop monitoring Rodriguez at this time. However, the prosecution did say that it would consider allowing Rodriguez certain freedoms if petitioned, without including any specifics.<\/p>\n The judge didn\u2019t allow for the modification of the bail conditions and asked both the prosecution and the defense to \u201cget moving on the case.\u201d<\/p>\nNo Evidence Of Money Transmission<\/h2>\n
Rodriguez\u2019s Request For Bail Modifications<\/h2>\n