US federal prosecutors have rebutted the claims that they have prevented evidence in their case against Crypto’s Samaurai Wallet mixing service co-founders, focusing on their disclosure of a conversation with Treasury Department staff have been made within the required times.
In a letter of May 9 to a federal Manhattan court, prosecutors opposed a request for a hearing, saying they provided “all known communications” between them and financial crimes that implemented financial crimes (Fincen) about Samurai “Month early on pretending motion and trial.”
“The defendants will have seven months to use the information before the test,” they wrote. “Nothing warranted.”
On May 5, Samaurai co-founders asked Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill to court for a hearing, claiming that Prosecutors will be late to reveal Fincen representatives told them six months before they charged the pair that under the agency’s guide, the service “did not qualify as a ‘currency business business’ that requires a Fincen license.”
However, prosecutors still charged the pair in February 2024 with a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money sending business and conspiracy, charges incidental and arrest the pair in April that year. They both pleaded not guilty.
In their letter, the prosecutors argued that they were “acting in good faith” in disclosing “the contents of this informal communication” between them and Kevin O’Connor, the head of the Virtual Assets and the Emerging Technology Section in the implementation and adherence of the division, and the division of the division Lorena Valente.
They claimed the comments of O’Connor and Valente were “their individual, informal, and caveated opinion” whether Samaurai had to register as a money transmitter under the regulations of Fincen.
Fincen “has no feeling” of Broaching Samaurai
The prosecutor’s letter has noted that an email from one of the prosecutors summarizing the August 2023 call with Fincen said that because Samaurai did not take Crypto custody, “strongly suggests that Samaurai is not acting as an MSB (Money Services) business.”
However, it noted that Fincen staff “did not feel what Fincen decided if this question was shown on their Fincen policy committee.”
Samaurai’s lawyers say the call showed Rodriguez and Hill “not those who send money under Fincen’s guidance” and that “they can’t be accused for not having a license.”
Samaurai co-founders bid to remove the case in April, pointing to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s The memo released that month It is said that the Department of Justice will not persecute the crypto mixers for “intolerance of violation of regulations.”
In their letter, the prosecutors discussed the memo, focusing on the court that “it should not be considered”, as the memo states that “it may not be reliable to create any right or benefit” against the US or its departments.
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