In a letter to the Southern District of New York (SDNY) filed at this time, the prosecutors within the Samourai Wallet case said that they didn’t withhold exculpatory evidence and petitioned the decide for the case to disclaim the protection’s request for a listening to to debate the late disclosure of key info that prosecutors had obtained from FinCEN nearly two years in the past.
Earlier within the week, the protection said in a letter that they’d realized that FinCEN had “strongly instructed” that Samourai Pockets was not appearing as a cash transmitting enterprise because of the noncustodial nature of the product in a dialogue between sure FinCEN members (extra on these members two sections down) and the prosecutors on August 23, 2023.
This info got here to gentle due to a Brady motion that the protection had submitted. (The sort of movement is called after the Brady v. Maryland Supreme Court docket case, which came about in 1963. The case established the Brady rule, which stipulates that exculpatory proof be supplied to the protection in order that it may be utilized as part of due course of.)
On condition that one of many two prices the Samourai builders are going through is conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise, some felt that this new info coming to gentle may very well be grounds for dismissing the case.
No Dismissal, No Listening to
Nonetheless, at this time’s letter from the prosecutors states that they haven’t any intention of dropping the case, nor do they really feel that the listening to requested by the protection is warranted.
“There isn’t any foundation for a listening to, neither is there something to treatment: the disclosure itself reveals that the federal government has not violated Brady,” the prosecutors said within the letter. “The Authorities disclosed all identified substantive communications between the prosecution group and FinCEN months upfront of pretrial motions and trial.”
The prosecutors added that they plan to proceed with the case, highlighting the second cost: conspiracy to commit cash laundering.
“As alleged, Samourai laundered over $100 million {dollars} of crime proceeds originating from, amongst different legal sources: unlawful darkweb markets, reminiscent of Silk Street and Hydra Market; varied wired fraud and laptop fraud schemes that disadvantaged victims of funds, together with web-server intrusion, a spear phishing scheme, and schemes to defraud a number of decentralized finance protocols; and different unlawful actions,” the prosecutors wrote.
Downplaying The Enter From FinCEN
Moreover, the prosecutors claimed that the truth that they solely lately disclosed their communications with FinCEN is irrelevant to the case, as a lot of the charged conduct doesn’t depend on FinCEN laws.
In addition they downplayed the significance of what was shared by the FinCEN staff who spoke with the prosecutors: Kevin O’Conner (Chief of FinCEN’s Digital Belongings and Rising Expertise Part within the Enforcement and Compliance Division) and Lorena Valente (an worker of FinCEN’s Coverage Division when she spoke with the prosecution).
The prosecutors referred to O’Conner and Valente’s opinions as “particular person, casual, and caveated,” including that they’d already supplied “substantive e mail correspondence between the prosecution group and members of FinCEN regarding the August 23, 2023 name.”
They went on to state that “the person staff of FinCEN weren’t talking on behalf of FinCEN, they weren’t offering FinCEN’s opinion, and so they ‘didn’t have a way of what FinCEN would determine if this query had been offered to their FinCEN coverage committee.’”
No Brady Violation
Within the closing part of the letter, the prosecutors asserted that they’d not violated authorized norms in not providing sure particulars of their August 23, 2023 name with FinCEN till this level within the pre-trial course of.
“The file reveals that there was no Brady violation on this case,” wrote the prosecutors.
“The federal government disclosed the contents of this casual dialog to the protection upfront of pretrial motions, and roughly seven months upfront of trial in response to a request for that info,” they added. “Nothing extra is required.”
Lastly, based on a Second Circuit ruling, which the prosecutors additionally talked about within the letter, so long as the protection possesses Brady proof in time for its efficient use, the federal government has not disadvantaged the protection of due course of.
What Comes Subsequent?
It’s unclear as to when Choose Berman will reply to at this time’s letter from the prosecution.
The protection’s opening movement was initially scheduled for at this time however has been pushed again two weeks. One week after the opening movement, the prosecution will reply to the protection’s opening movement.
As of the last pre-trial hearing, the prosecution is scheduled to offer its knowledgeable disclosure on July 15, 2025, and the protection is predicted to offer theirs by August 8, 2025.
The trial is scheduled to start on November 3, 2025.
Should you’d wish to donate to the protection fund for the Samourai builders, you are able to do so through the P2P Rights Fund.