{"id":18706,"date":"2024-11-19T10:30:52","date_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/heather-morgan-sentenced-to-18-months-for-bitfinex-hack-involvement\/"},"modified":"2024-11-19T10:30:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-19T08:30:52","slug":"heather-morgan-sentenced-to-18-months-for-bitfinex-hack-involvement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/heather-morgan-sentenced-to-18-months-for-bitfinex-hack-involvement\/","title":{"rendered":"Heather Morgan Sentenced to 18 Months for Bitfinex Hack Involvement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A US federal court has sentenced Heather Morgan to 18 months in prison for her role in laundering 119,754 BTC stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, reports <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/policy\/2024\/11\/18\/bitfinex-hack-launderer-heather-razzlekhan-morgan-sentenced-to-18-months-in-prison\/\">CoinDesk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who orchestrated the attack, received a five-year sentence on November 14.<\/p>\n<p>The couple was arrested in February 2022, when authorities seized 94,643 BTC (approximately $3.6 billion at the time) from them.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2023, both pleaded guilty to money laundering, though Lichtenstein disputed his role in the hack. He faced up to 20 years in prison, while Morgan faced up to ten.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors recommended an 18-month sentence for Morgan, considering her cooperation with the investigation.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cI am very sorry and deeply regret the choices I made. I spent my time and energy causing harm rather than good. And I am ashamed of that,\u201d she stated during the hearings.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The defense sought to limit her punishment to the 17 days she spent in jail after her arrest and the house arrest she has been under since.<\/p>\n<p>However, the prosecution pointed out that she was \u201cdeeply involved\u201d in the complex schemes to launder the bitcoins stolen by Lichtenstein.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that Morgan&#8217;s actions were deliberate and planned, and she did not cease her illegal activities voluntarily before her arrest.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cThe harm I caused will haunt me for the rest of my life,\u201d the defendant expressed remorse.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hours after the sentencing, Morgan released a video stating that she had remained silent on her lawyers&#8217; advice.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My statement ?\u200d\u2640\ufe0f<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/razzlekhan?src=hash&#038;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#razzlekhan<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/janr9RD1Q2\">pic.twitter.com\/janr9RD1Q2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Heather &#8220;Razzlekhan&#8221; Morgan (@HeatherReyhan) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HeatherReyhan\/status\/1858620639898186086?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 18, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s all over, and I am very glad that soon I will be able to tell my story, share my thoughts, and tell you more about the creativity and other ventures I have been working on,\u201d she declared.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Before her arrest, Morgan was known as a rapper under the alias Razzlekhan, a blogger, and an active social media influencer.<\/p>\n<p>In January, Amazon MGM Studios <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/amazon-to-produce-film-on-bitfinex-hack\">began<\/a> production of a feature film about the Bitfinex hack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A US federal court has sentenced Heather Morgan to 18 months in prison for her role in laundering 119,754 BTC stolen from the Bitfinex exchange in 2016, reports CoinDesk. Her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein, who orchestrated the attack, received a five-year sentence on November 14. The couple was arrested in February 2022, when authorities seized 94,643 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95,1162,1154,44,26],"class_list":["post-18706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bitfinex","tag-court-cases","tag-crimes","tag-cybercrime","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"23","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}