{"id":128173,"date":"2025-04-29T05:15:58","date_gmt":"2025-04-29T05:15:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=128173"},"modified":"2025-04-29T05:15:58","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T05:15:58","slug":"samourai-wallet-feds-ask-for-time-to-mull-dropping-crypto-mixer-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/?p=128173","title":{"rendered":"Samourai Wallet, feds ask for time to mull dropping crypto mixer case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsUS federal prosecutors and the co-founders of the crypto mixer Samourai Wallet have asked a court for more time to consider potentially dismissing the case after the Justice Department rolled back its crypto enforcement.<br \/>\nLawyers for Samourai Wallet CEO Keonne Rodriguez and chief technology officer William Hill said in an April 28 letter to Manhattan federal judge Richard Berman that they jointly requested with the government \u201cfor a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule by 16 days.\u201d<br \/>\nThe Samourai executives&#8217; lawyers said on April 10 that they wrote to Acting Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton to request the dismissal of the case after an April 7 memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche shuttered the Justice Department\u2019s crypto team.<br \/>\n\u201cOn April 24, 2025, defense counsel met with the prosecutors and their supervisors in person at the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office to discuss this request,\u201d the lawyers said.<br \/>\n\u201cThe Defendants believe that a continuance of the pretrial motions schedule is warranted to permit Defendants to avoid the significant expense of preparing their motions while the Government determines its position,\u201d the letter stated.<br \/>\nIt added that prosecutors agreed to adjourn \u201cwithout expressing any views on the merits.\u201d<br \/>\nSamourai Wallet\u2019s Rodriguez and Hill were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business in April 2024, to which they both pleaded not guilty.<br \/>\nBlanche\u2019s memo said, \u201cThe Department of Justice is not a digital assets regulator,\u201d and it would abandon enforcement and investigations besides those which \u201cfocus on prosecuting individuals who victimize digital asset investors, or those who use digital assets in furtherance of criminal offenses.\u201d<br \/>\nAn excerpt of the letter to Judge Berman. Source: PACERCurrently, motions in the Samourai executives&#8217; case are due May 13, responses are due on June 10, and replies on June 24. The letter proposes to put this back to May 29 for motions, June 26 for responses, and July 10 for replies.<br \/>\nThe continuance would not affect the trial date, which is slated for early November.\u00a0<br \/>\nQuashing crypto litigation list lengthens\u00a0<br \/>\nThe move is the latest in a long list of court actions to have prosecutors&#8217; crypto cases quashed under the Trump administration&#8217;s favorable stance toward the industry.\u00a0<br \/>\nRelated: SEC says it won\u2019t re-file fraud case against Hex\u2019s Richard Heart\u00a0<br \/>\nOn April 9, SafeMoon CEO Braden John Karony, who is charged with wire fraud and money laundering, cited Blanche\u2019s directive in a bid to get his case dismissed.\u00a0<br \/>\nMeanwhile, on April 28, the DeFi Education Fund petitioned the White House to drop charges against Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm and requested immediate action to \u201cdiscontinue the Biden-era Department of Justice\u2019s lawless campaign to criminalize open-source software development.\u201d\u00a0<br \/>\nMagazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF\u2019s mysterious prison move: Hodler\u2019s Digest<a href=\"https:\/\/cointelegraph.com\/news\/samourai-wallet-feds-ask-for-time-consider-dropping-crypto-mixer-case?utm_source=rss_feed&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"feedzy-rss-link-icon\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsUS federal prosecutors and the co-founders of the crypto mixer Samourai Wallet have asked a court for more time to consider potentially dismissing the case after the Justice&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128173"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}