Overview As Provided by the Courts
U.S. District Judge Denise Cote sentenced Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of Samourai Wallet, to five years in federal prison for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
This prison term was the maximum sentence for the crime. Judge Cote also imposed a $250,000 fine on Rodriguez and three years of supervised release after his prison term.
Rodriguez’s sentencing occurred on November 6, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Prosecutors had requested the maximum five-year sentence for Rodriguez, arguing that Samourai Wallet facilitated over $237 million in illegal transactions, including proceeds from drug trafficking, darknet marketplaces, cyber-intrusions, frauds, sanctioned jurisdictions, and murder-for-hire schemes.
Judge Cote emphasized the need for deterrence during sentencing and stated that she had a “troubling reaction” to Rodriguez’s letter to the court, noting that it did not indicate awareness of his crime.
Overview As Provided by Facts
A judge oversees what the jury will hear and see (through exhibits).
The original judge was abrupty repleaced just before the trial started without any warning nor given reason - the replacement judge, Denise Cote, immediately put a lid on anything that the jury would listen to from Keonne and his lawyers - including the fact that a branch of the Federal government, FinCEN - Financial Crimes Enforcement Network - had previously declared that his product was not in alignment with the charges being levied against him.
To have an unlicensed money-transmitting business charge, you must intentionally have a recipient or sender of the money and either launder it or keep the funds yourself.
As you will discover from Naomi Brockwell’s interview, the funds used in any transaction created by the use of his product were controlled by the sender and were kept by the recipient, all in complete privacy.
Once you know all the facts, Judge Cote's actions stink of the usual corruption that has been exposed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, thanks to the multiple high-profile cases held there during the past 9+ years…
Per Judge Cote …
“The defendant engaged over a period of years in very serious, anti-social criminal behavior.
“I don’t understand his letter to reflect that he's come to terms with that,” Cote said during a roughly hour-long hearing at the federal courthouse in downtown Manhattan.
“He identifies his motivation here as a desire to protect financial privacy. That’s fine, that’s good. We all want financial privacy. But I don’t think that’s really what was at stake here…There is no acknowledgement in that letter of the criminal world for whom digital currency is a gift.”
She has to be either completely inept, pretending not to know that she is looking like a fool, or is pushing an agenda - perhaps all three.
There was a congressman from Ohio, Warren Davidson,
who had a great analogy about this case.
He said, “It’s like prosecuting Microsoft because drug dealers make use of Excel.”
Please view the full video - there are options offered that could help Keonne get this case exposed even more. He had to report to the MDC of NY on December 19; fellow developer William Lonergan Hill will be sentenced later this month.
So while the Epstein files have been keeping everyone diverted, the USDC-SDNY chucked one a massive warning to those technically gifted who can assist the general public in keeping their financial transactions private.
The realization we may lose ALL our privacy is much closer than most realize…
