Samourai Wallet Prosecutors Discuss Dropping Charges in Light of DOJ’s New Crypto-Asset Enforcement Priorities: Filings
Cheyenne Ligon | Edited by Nikhilesh De on April 29, 2025, 4:46 PM
In court documents filed Monday, New York prosecutors appear to be weighing whether to drop the case against Samourai Wallet co-founders Keon Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill.
In a joint filing with District Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), prosecutors and attorneys for Rodriguez and Hill requested a 16-day stay or extension of time “while the government determines its position” in response to the defense’s request to dismiss the case in light of Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s recent memo to Department of Justice (DOJ) staff.
In an April 7 memo, Blanche said the Justice Department’s crypto unit, the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET), would be disbanded and instructed staff to no longer bring cases against crypto exchanges, mixing services, or offline wallets “for the actions of their end users or unintentional violations of regulations.”
Blanche ordered all ongoing investigations that do not comply with the new policy to be closed and said his department would work with the Justice Department’s criminal division to “review ongoing cases for compliance with this policy.”
Read more: US Justice Department closes crypto unit as Trump regulations continue to loosen
Three days after Blanche’s memo, Hill and Rodriguez’s attorneys sent a letter to the U.S. Attorneys for the Southern District of New York “requesting that the superseding indictment pursuant to the Blanche memo” be dismissed, according to documents filed Monday. The parties met on April 24 to discuss the request.
Rodriguez and Hill were charged last April with conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter. The charges carry maximum sentences of 20 years and five years in prison, respectively. Prosecutors allege that Samourai Wallet facilitated about $2 billion in “illegal transactions” between 2015 and 2024, with the pair collecting a total of $4.5 million in fees.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
[…] January 2022, the number of cryptocurrencies existing in the market increased by 1 thousand. This implies that each new…
Your writing is like a breath of fresh air in the often stale world of online content. Your unique perspective…
I would like to share my story and express my great gratitude to Maria. My husband Alexander was literally taken…