Keonne Rodriguez, co-founder of privacy-focused Samourai Wallet, faces yet another federal prison transfer after the drug-treatment program at FCI McKean in Pennsylvania was deactivated, he said Wednesday.
Rodriguez posted on X that McKean’s warden notified participants that he and approximately 70 others would be relocated to facilities where treatment remains available. He had entered the program because completing it could reduce his sentence by up to one year.
In a letter published by The Rage, Rodriguez described his prior transfer from FPC Morgantown to FCI McKean as “the absolute worst 30 days” of his life, saying his request to travel the roughly four-hour distance himself was denied.
Rodriguez is serving a five-year sentence after pleading guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. According to the Justice Department, he and Samourai co-founder William Lonergan Hill moved more than $237 million in criminal proceeds through the service.
He wrote that inmates departing Morgantown were shackled at the ankles and wrists with waist chains, bused to an airport and flown to the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. At the transit facility, Rodriguez said he was held alongside prisoners from different security classifications and spent most of his time locked in a cell. At one point he wrote that he wondered whether “all the circles of hell” were contained within the federal transfer center. He was later assigned a cellmate serving a murder sentence and given only part of a foam mattress, leaving part of his body exposed to a metal bunk overnight.
The case unfolded against a backdrop of congressional efforts to shield developers who do not control users’ assets from being classified as financial intermediaries. The latest Senate CLARITY Act draft retained provisions from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act that would protect 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 proceed.
