Samourai Wallet’s Lawyers Say Prosecution Suppressed Critical Evidence, Call for Dismissal

Lawyers for Samourai Wallet have accused the prosecution of suppressing critical evidence in its case against the mixing service’s co-founders, calling for a hearing to determine whether the case should now be tossed out in light of the alleged Brady violation.In a Monday court filing, lawyers for Samourai Wallet told Judge Richard Berman of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that in August 2023 — six months before prosecutors charged Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill with one count each of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business — the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) told prosecutors that, under their guidelines, Samourai Wallet didn’t qualify as a money transmitting business and did not need a license to operate.Prosecutors went ahead and charged Rodriguez and Hill anyway, and did not tell either the court or Samourai Wallet’s lawyers about their communication with FinCEN until April 1, 2025 when responding to the defense’s specific Brady request for “any information suggesting that Samourai Wallet did not require a money transmitter license or that the Defendants did not believe that it required such a license, including but not limited to communications with the Treasury Department or FinCEN," the defense attorneys wrote.“The fact that FinCEN took the same position regarding Samourai Wallet and conveyed it to these same prosecutors, and that the prosecutors nonetheless charged the Defendants with committing a crime is shocking,” Samourai Wallet’s lawyers wrote in their filing source: https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2025/05/05/samourai-wallet-s-lawyers-say-prosecution-suppressed-critical-evidence-call-for-dismissal