This morning, a letter presented by the defense of the developers of Samourai’s portfolio Keonne Rodriguez and William Longan Hill revealed that the southern district of New York (Sdny) had repressed downhill tests in the criminal proceeding.
According to the deposit, the charge had consulted Fincen before the accusation of the developers on the profitability of bringing accusations of transmission of money without license against an non -custodial service.
“A mixer like Samourai who does not take the custody of the cryptocurrency, having private keys would strongly suggest that Samourai does not act as MSB,” Fincen said to the ministries, according to the deposit.
In internal communications, public ministries have said that they can bring charges based on the “functional control” of the code, probably referring to the control of Samourai on the user interface and on the coinjoin server by Samourai Wallet. The accusation declared that such a topic “has never been addressed in the guide”, recognizing that “it could be a difficult topic to do”.
The communications between Fincen and Sdny have been revealed following a so -called request for Brady, ordering the government to deliver any proof that can exempt the developers of the accusations.
The government is required to deliver the tests to shoulder straps two weeks after submitting its accusation. The late dissemination of these highly relevant materials could now have deceived the court, supports the letter, which affect both the deposit requirements supported by the developers and for the inclination of the judge to deny the presentation of a dismissal motion.
The defense is now looking for an audition to determine potential remedies in SDNY’s conduct, including the dismissal of the accusations.
“It is difficult to imagine a clearer example of” regulation for judicial proceedings “compared to what we have here”, says the defense, referring to Blache’s recent reminder. “The relevant regulator who said to public prosecutors that Samourai’s portfolio was not a money transmitter – under the same public guide on which Rodriguez and Hill relied on to guide their conduct – and the ministries who went on and indicate anyway for having managed an activity of money -free money services.”
Fincen’s position on non -foster service providers shared with Sdny echoes to his 2019 guide, in which he stated that “a cryptocurrency portfolio provider must be classified as a money transmitter if” the host has a total independent control over value (although contractually obliged to access the value only on the owner’s instructions).
The defense groups and legal scholars have long argued that the pursuit of the portfolio developers of Samourai, as well as the pursuit of the Tornado Cash Developers Roman Storm and Roman Senov, constitute a clear violation of the Fincen Guide.
While Samourai’s request for Brady was successful, a similar request made by the Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm who tried to force the government to disseminate “any material received by Ofac and Fincen not already produced, including substantial communications with these agencies”, was denied last year, since the government claimed that Fincen is not part of the accusation team on the case.
As Storm on X points out, he was arrested on the same day when the prosecutors of the Samourai portfolio consulted Fincen on the feasibility of the accusations of transmission of money without license, making it seem that Sdny was also aware of the trait of his accusations for the entire Storm activity.
“Fincen explicitly informed the public ministries that the non -custodial design of Samourai Wallet did not require money transmitter licenses, but the Doj indicated the developers regardless,” Bitcoin Policy Institute told Bitcoin Magazine. “This procedure exemplifies the regulation of the criminal accusation, directly challenging the directive of Deputy AG Blanche and undermining the cryptographic policies of the Trump Administration.”
“Brady Violation”, writes a JW Verret anti -popular recycling expert on X. “The case should only be launched on that, much less the new DOJ reminder by ordering SDNY to make the case fall.”
“The fact that public ministries attempted to retain this information from the defense is a serious ethical violation and could end up obtaining the case,” says Verret to Bitcoin Magazine. “This is if the Doj does not leave everything together since the main justice has actually ordered cases like this.”
“As we said,” writes Peter Van Valkenburgh of Coincenter on X, “the proceedings for the transmission of money without license from the Doj are directly in contrast with the rule of law. Today we have had further confirmation that the judicial proceeding has understood that it was contradicting a longtime regulatory guide, but it has meant that the accusations”.
“It follows that if they were not transmitters of money under the guidance of Fincen”, says the defense in their letter, “then they could not be pursued to not have a license and not having implemented the anti -dinery recycling checks”, alluding that the case against the developers of the Samourai wallet should be eliminated completely.
This is a post for L0la L33TZ guests. The opinions expressed are entirely proper and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.