Keonne Rodriguez, co‑founder of the now‑shuttered Bitcoin privacy wallet Samourai, has published an appeal from federal prison asking the Bitcoin community to help cover more than $2 million in legal debt — and acknowledged that hopes for a presidential pardon have effectively evaporated.
In a post on X dated May 6, Rodriguez — 37 and five months into a 60‑month sentence at FPC Morgantown in West Virginia — described mounting financial pressure on him and his wife, Lauren. He said daily calls and letters from lawyers demanding payment, plus DOJ pressure to start paying a $250,000 court‑imposed fine, have left them with no viable options. Rodriguez directed donation requests to the Bitcoin address bc1qtjjcvn98wh7dfd55m8kxhjcfexanttwt8gtan8 (private alternatives are available through his wife’s X account). That address contained roughly $65,000 in donations at the time of writing. A petition backing a pardon had about 15,955 signatures as of May 7, according to Cryip.co.
Background and legal fallout
- Rodriguez was arrested in April 2024, pleaded guilty in July 2025, and was sentenced in November 2025. He told journalist Natalie Brunell he accepted the plea to avoid the risk of a much longer sentence and far greater legal bills.
- Co‑founder William Lonergan Hill received a four‑year sentence. As part of the judgment, both men forfeited roughly $6.37 million in fees earned from Samourai’s operations, per the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
- Federal prosecutors say Samourai’s Whirlpool mixing and Ricochet “hopping” services knowingly facilitated criminal activity, citing private communications and public statements in court filings.
Fade of pardon hopes
Rodriguez’s post also addressed earlier optimism after President Trump signaled in December 2025 he would review the case and consider a pardon — a possibility that briefly raised hopes given Trump’s prior pardons of Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Rodriguez wrote plainly: “One must come to terms with the fact that I am simply a federal prisoner without money, power, or influence, and I will serve my full sentence.” The Bitcoin 2026 conference passed without action on the matter.
Wider implications for privacy tools and the ecosystem
Samourai Wallet had served more than 100,000 users and, according to the DOJ, processed over $2 billion in Bitcoin transactions since its 2015 launch. The case has become a flashpoint in an ongoing debate over whether creators of non‑custodial privacy tools can be held criminally liable for how third parties use their software. The Cato Institute warned the prosecution risks chilling privacy advocates, human rights defenders, and open‑source developers. Following the platform’s shutdown, Samourai’s original code continues to circulate via the Ashigaru fork maintained by independent contributors.
Rodriguez has also warned that if the legal reasoning used against Samourai is extended, other parts of the Bitcoin ecosystem — including miners — could face similar enforcement scrutiny.
Why this matters
The Samourai prosecution and Rodriguez’s current appeal underscore a fraught legal landscape for builders of privacy tools: developers, lawyers, and regulators are still wrestling with where to draw the line between lawful software development and operating impermissible financial infrastructure under U.S. law. Rodriguez’s fundraiser and his candid acknowledgment that a pardon is unlikely add a human and financial dimension to a case that will continue to shape policy and developer behavior in crypto.
(Cover image: Grok. BTCUSD chart: TradingView.)
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