"The judge did not seem particularly sympathetic to the financial privacy argument."
Key updates from Keonne's sentencing π
Earlier this year, Rodriguez and Samourai Wallet cocreator William Hill plead guilty to conspiracy to violate money transmission licensing requirements for building a non-custodial Bitcoin privacy wallet.
Rodriguez doesn't identify the problem Samourai sought to solve, judge Cote said at the sentencing hearing.
βThere is no acknowledgement [by Rordiguez] of the criminal world for whom digital currency is a gift β¦ There seems to be no recognition of the human suffering that was facilitated by the defendant.β
Rodriguez pled guilty to a subsection of money transmitter licensing law criminalizing the knowing transmission of illicit proceeds.
The Defense requested a sentence of one year and one day. A pre-sentencing recommendation from probation authorities recommended 42 months.
The subsection applied to Roriguez is the same subsection that prosecutors used to convict Tornado Cash cocreator Roman Storm this August.
At the time, many scholars argued that the subsection was misapplied due to a lack of licensing requirements for non-custodial services.
Earlier this year, Assistant Attorney General Matthew Galeotti stated that the DOJ would no longer bring prosecutions against non-custodial developers under the subsection applied to Rodriguez, Hill and Storm.
The defense highlighted ambiguities in the law itself, citing confusion around whether licensing and regulatory requirements, such as the Bank Secrecy Act, applied to non-custodial services.
It also highlighted the need for services like Samourai Wallet to conceal otherwise public funds to protect Bitcoin users from extortion and kidnappings.
In addition to the 5 year sentence and $250,000 fine, Rodriguez will be on supervised release for 3 years.
20% of his gross income will be garnished after release to pay the fine, as will $25 a month or up to 50% of any income earned in Federal prison work programs.
