US prosecutors seek more time to decide on dropping Samourai Wallet charges

Samourai Wallet co-founders and U.S. prosecutors have asked a federal judge to delay court proceedings as they weigh a possible dismissal of the case.

In an April 28 letter to Judge Richard Berman, Samourai Wallet defense attorneys said they had jointly requested a 16-day extension of the pretrial motions schedule with the government.

If approved, the new timeline would push the deadline for motions to May 29, with responses due June 26 and replies by July 10. The trial date, currently scheduled for early November, would remain unchanged.

Samourai Wallet CEO Keonne Rodriguez and CTO William Hill were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice in April 2024 for allegedly running an unlicensed money-transmitting business and laundering over $100 million through the platform. Rodriguez was arrested in the U.S., while Hill was detained in Portugal and is awaiting extradition.

According to the April 28 letter, defense attorneys for Samourai CEO Keonne Rodriguez and CTO William Hill met with prosecutors on April 24 to discuss dropping the charges. They contended that it would be a “significant expense” to prepare motions while the DOJ is still “determining its position” on whether to proceed.

Prosecutors reportedly agreed to the delay “without expressing any views on the merits,” the letter noted.

The joint request for a delay comes on the heels of a major policy reversal within the Justice Department. 

In early April, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memo disbanding the DOJ’s National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team, a task force created under the Biden administration to pursue crypto-related crimes.

Blanche criticized the previous administration’s “reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution” and stated plainly that the DOJ “is not a digital assets regulator.”

The memo urged prosecutors to limit enforcement efforts to cases involving direct criminal harm, such as fraud against investors or the use of digital assets to facilitate serious offences.

Lawyers representing Samourai had initially written to Acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton on April 10, just days after the DOJ memo, formally requesting that the case be dismissed in light of the department’s revised crypto enforcement stance.

While the DOJ previously viewed such platforms as enablers of illicit activity, the new guidance calls for a narrower scope of enforcement that does not target developers solely for creating privacy tools.

The policy shift was already being referenced in other cases. On April 9, SafeMoon CEO Braden Karony cited Blanche’s memo to ask a New York judge to drop his fraud and securities charges, arguing they no longer align with the DOJ’s updated stance.