Samourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez says he faces another prison transfer

Samourai Wallet co-founder says he faces another prison move

Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of the crypto wallet Samourai Wallet, said he and about 70 other inmates face another transfer after the drug treatment program at FCI McKean was deactivated. A wallet is software that stores the keys used to hold and send crypto.

Rodriguez said the warden told people in the program that they would be moved to other facilities where treatment is still available. He said he joined the program because finishing it could reduce his sentence by up to a year.

He is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. These statements come from Rodriguez himself, not from prison or court officials.

Key points from his account

• Rodriguez said the treatment program at FCI McKean was deactivated and that he and 70 others would be moved.
• He said completing the program could cut up to a year from his sentence.
• He described his earlier transfer from FPC Morgantown to McKean as the "absolute worst 30 days" of his life.
• He said his request to make the roughly four-hour trip on his own was denied.

How a four-hour trip turned into 30 days

In a letter published by The Rage, Rodriguez described the trip from FPC Morgantown to McKean. He said inmates were placed in ankle shackles and handcuffs attached to waist chains before being taken by bus to an airport and flown to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City.

At that facility, he said he was held with prisoners from different security classifications and spent most of his time locked in a cell. He said he was eventually placed in a cell with an inmate serving a murder sentence and was given only part of a foam mattress, leaving part of his body on a metal bunk overnight.

What the Justice Department said about the case

The Justice Department said Rodriguez and Samourai co-founder William Lonergan Hill transmitted more than $237 million in criminal proceeds through the service. This is an official statement from the department about the case, separate from Rodriguez's own accounts of prison conditions.

Developer protections stalled in the Senate

The case has played out alongside congressional efforts to protect developers who do not control users' assets from being treated as financial intermediaries. The latest Senate draft of the CLARITY Act kept provisions from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act that shield non-controlling developers from certain money-transmission requirements under the Bank Secrecy Act.

The Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15 after a procedural vote fell short of the 60 votes needed to move the legislation forward.

What is confirmed and what is not

Confirmed from the supplied material: Rodriguez is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and the Justice Department said he and Hill transmitted more than $237 million in criminal proceeds. It is also confirmed that the Senate did not advance the CLARITY Act on Sept. 15.

Not confirmed: the details of the transfer itself, the deactivation of the treatment program, and the conditions Rodriguez describes. Those come from Rodriguez's post on X and his letter, and no prison or court official is cited confirming them. The source material does not say when the move will happen or where the inmates will be sent.

Why this matters for crypto developers

The Samourai case and the CLARITY Act debate both touch on how US law treats people who build crypto tools that others use. The Senate bill's developer protections did not move forward, so the question of how non-controlling developers are treated remains unresolved.

Sources

• Cointelegraph