5 Years In Prison For Building A Bitcoin Wallet | Lauren Rodriguez

Key Takeaways

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  Non-custodial code is being treated as a crime - Despite FinCEN guidance stating non-custodial wallets are not money transmitters, the DOJ targeted Samourai founders for unlicensed money transmission and laundering conspiracy.

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  The prosecution allegedly suppressed exonerating evidence - Prosecutors reportedly buried a FinCEN memo that cleared Samourai of being a money service business, a move the defense characterizes as a significant Brady violation.

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  The judicial process forced a tactical plea deal - Facing a hostile judge swap and the threat of a 25-year sentence, the founders chose five-year plea deals as a survival tactic rather than risking a trial in a compromised environment.

Episode Description

At 5am, Lauren Rodriguez woke to laser sights, a drone flying through her house, and 40 armed federal agents raiding their cottage, all because her husband built a Bitcoin wallet. Keonne Rodriguez co-founded Samurai Wallet in 2015, a non-custodial Bitcoin wallet with privacy features including Whirlpool, their CoinJoin implementation. For nearly a decade, the wallet operated openly on the Google Play Store with no issues. Then on April 24th, 2024, the FBI and IRS launched coordinated raids on the Rodriguez home in Pennsylvania and co-founder Bill Hill's home in Portugal. The charges: conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money service business and conspiracy to money launder. The problem: FinCEN's own guidance stated that non-custodial wallets are not money transmitters. And six months before indictment, prosecutors asked FinCEN directly whether Samurai was a money service business, FinCEN said no. The prosecutors buried that answer, a Brady violation. Lauren walks through the full story; the raid, the discovery process involving 17 terabytes of evidence, the sudden judicial switch from a neutral judge to a former chief of the SDNY criminal division, the five-minute hearing where every defense motion was denied without explanation, and the impossible math of a plea deal versus a 25-year trial exposure with a hostile judge. Keonne is now serving a five-year federal prison sentence. Lauren is fighting for a presidential pardon for both Keonne and Bill. Sign the petition and support their case at BillandKeonne.org (http://BillandKeonne.org). THANKS TO OUR SPONSORS: ANCHORWATCH (https://www.anchorwatch.com/) BLOCKWARE (https://mining.blockwaresolutions.com/wbd) LEDN (https://ledn.io/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=partnership&utm_campaign=2025_whatbitcoindid&utm_content=ad_read) BITKEY (https://bitkey.world/) SWAN (https://www.swan.com/wbd) CLUB ORANGE (https://www.cluborange.org/) FOLLOW: Danny Knowles: https://x.com/_DannyKnowles (https://x.com/_DannyKnowles) or https://primal.net/danny (https://primal.net/danny) Lauren Rodriguez: https://x.com/leamuirleyn (https://x.com/leamuirleyn) Sign the Petition & Donate: https://billandkeonne.org/ (https://billandkeonne.org/)