Samourai Wallet CTO Released on $2 Million Bail

The U.S. government has agreed to the release on bail of William Lonergan Hill, co-founder and CTO of the anonymous Bitcoin wallet Samourai Wallet, also known as TDev.

According to documents, the initial hearing for Hill’s case “following his uncontested extradition from Portugal” is scheduled for July 9 or 10 in the Southern District of New York court.

The letter states that the prosecution and the developer’s lawyers have agreed on most of the bail conditions. Hill requests to return to his home in Lisbon before the trial begins, but the government opposes this.

Lawyers have ruled out the risk of Hill fleeing, as the “extremely reliable agreed bail amount would leave his relatives homeless if he failed to appear in court.” Moreover, the lawyers argue that the developer “does not face a guaranteed prison term” due to the “novelty and aggressiveness of the charges.”

Hill was released after posting $2 million, of which $200,000 was in cash, with the remainder secured by his family home in New York.

According to the lawyers, the charges have sparked “significant public debate,” citing an open letter from Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden, criticizing the “unprecedented and unlawful interpretation of the law by the prosecution.”

“[FinCEN] has long made it clear that peer-to-peer applications like Samourai Wallet […], are not considered money transmission services. The fact that Hill […] offered the application openly for nine years indicates that [the government], like the senators, also considered it legal,” stated the defense.

Pointing to Hill’s innocence, the lawyers emphasized that even Google did not consider Samourai Wallet illegal. They noted that in May 2015, the corporation allowed the wallet application to be listed on its Android smartphone marketplace.

The defense also compared the “aggressive prosecution” of the developer to “holding Apple accountable for cybercrimes committed via MacBook.”

In April, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office charged Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and Hill with facilitating $100 million in money laundering for cybercriminals and sanctioned individuals.

Authorities report that since 2015, the wallet has processed anonymous transactions totaling $2 billion.

Earlier, Rodriguez was released on $1 million bail, pleading not guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmission business and laundering criminal proceeds.