Samourai Wallet co-founder faces $2 million debt crisis, community urgent appeal after pardon hopes fall through

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Deep Tide TechFlow news, on May 07, according to CoinTelegraph, the co-founder of the crypto-mixing protocol Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez, publicly issued an urgent fundraising appeal to the crypto community, saying that because of prolonged legal proceedings, he has been “bankrupted,” with a cumulative debt of $2 million in attorney fees and a $250k fine ordered by the court, and that he has now “reached the point of utter exhaustion.”

Rodriguez, together with another co-founder, William Lonergan Hill, was arrested in April 2024 on suspicion of conspiracy to launder money and illegal operation of an unlicensed remittance business. In July 2025, both pleaded guilty, and in November of the same year, they were sentenced to 5 years and 4 years in prison, respectively. Rodriguez said that pleading guilty was an unfortunate move after weighing the pros and cons, to avoid a longer prison term and higher litigation costs.

Regarding clemency, although Trump had said he would review his case, and more than 1.5 万 people have signed a petition, Rodriguez admitted that his hopes for a pardon are slim—unlike CZ and Ross Ulbricht, “I’m just a federal prisoner with no money, power, or influence.”

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