UPCOMING EVENT: Next week, Wednesday, February 5, at noon. FFF is hosting a get-together in downtown Boston after the oral arguments in Ian Freeman’s appeal, where we will discuss the oral arguments. I will be there. Trillium Brewing Fort Point, 50 Thomson Pl, Boston, MA 02210; (857) 449-0083; https://trilliumbrewing.com. Reminder: The Court of Appeals is located in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse, One Courthouse Way in Boston. The oral arguments are scheduled for 9:30 a.m. on the 7th floor of the courthouse. Trillium Brewing is about one block away. See here for more details.
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Oral arguments in the case of U.S. v. Ian Freeman are scheduled for next Wednesday, February 5, at 9:30 a.m. on the 7th floor in the John Joseph Moakley U.S. Courthouse, One Courthouse Way, in Boston. It is open to the public.
While federal judges do not ordinarily respond to public pressure, it would be great to at least let them know that lots of people are concerned about what the feds have done to Freeman. That’s why people’s quiet presence at the oral arguments can be extremely helpful. It might well encourage the judges to take a very careful look at this conviction.
The Future of Freedom Foundation is hosting a get-together for people who attend the oral arguments. We have rented a section of a nearby pub named Trillium Brewing Fort Point, 50 Thomson Pl, Boston, from 12 noon to 2 p.m., following the oral arguments. If the oral arguments finish early, the plan is to meet up first at the nearby Capitol One Cafe and then head over to Trillium Brewing at noon.
As I pointed out in my 3-part series and another supplemental article, there is no doubt in my mind that Ian Freeman is an innocent man. That is, he should never have been charged of any criminal offense, much less tried, convicted, and sentenced to 8 long years in a federal prison camp.
After carefully reading the trial transcript, it is my opinion that this prosecution was motivated by extreme federal prejudice against bitcoin and possibly even against libertarianism in general.
John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International, 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.
As most libertarians know, Freeman was at the forefront of the bitcoin monetary revolution. He understood fully the potential ramification of bitcoin — that is might well enable people to keep their financial affairs secret from the prying eyes of government, as America’s Founding Fathers and the Framers intended.
Needless to say, that concept of financial privacy infuriated many federals. In their minds, everyone’s financial affairs should be open for full government inspection and monitoring — as a way to keep us “safe” from the terrorists, the Muslims, the communists, the illegal immigrants, the drug dealers, the Russians, the Chinese, and other scary official boogeymen.
When I read the trial transcript in Freeman’s case and discovered that the federals had tried to entrap him into committing a crime, that was when I came to the opinion that there was extreme prejudice driving these people. After all, what would motivate anyone to try to entrap someone into committing a crime? What kind of person does such a thing? A person whose mindset is warped by extreme prejudice.
Why would they try entrap to Freeman into committing a crime? Because they knew that they had nothing else to get him on. If they did have something else, they never would have felt the need to entrap an innocent man into committing a crime.
To the judge’s credit, the judge did end up throwing out the jury’s verdict of guilty on the crime for which the government had tried to entrap Freeman. That was obviously the right thing to do.
But the judge should also have thrown out all the other charges. After all, if those other charges were substantial and valid, why would the federals have to resort to a bogus entrapment charge in an effort to get Freeman?
There was the charge for “failing to register” his bitcoin business with federal regulators. Whoop dee doo! Wow, that’s a serious thing, well deserving of 8 years in prison, right? No! Why should anyone have to register any business with the federal government? Where does the Constitution grant the federal government with the power to go into the business-registration business?
Equally important, if federal law requires people who are in the business of transmitting money to register their business, what does that have to do with bitcoin? Even a cursory amount of online research shows that many reputable economists and financial experts contend that bitcoin does not meet the necessary prerequisites to be considered “money.” Are we now living in a country in which people are going to be convicted and sent to prison for offenses that are not clearly defined as clear-cut criminal offenses under the law? And again, if the “failure to register” offense was so substantial and valid, why would they feel the need to resort to entrapment?
There was the charge for failing to pay income taxes. But the government’s own IRS witness stated under oath that the IRS wasn’t really certain whether Freeman owed any income taxes at all. She confirmed under oath that the ordinary procedure is to sit down with the taxpayer and try to figure out how much he owes, if anything. They didn’t do that with Freeman. They just indicted him. If that doesn’t show extreme prejudice, I don’t know what does. Do we really now live in a country in which a person can be convicted of failing to pay income taxes when the government itself confesses under oath that it doesn’t know whether the victim even owes any income taxes? And again, if their income-tax offense was substantial and valid, why did they feel the need to try to entrap Freeman into committing a crime?
And then there was the conspiracy-to-launder money charge. There wasn’t one iota of evidence throughout the trial that Freeman conspired with anyone. The prosecutors hoodwinked the jury by flooding them with evidence of little old ladies who had been defrauded of their money by online scammers in whom they had fallen in love. But it was the little old ladies themselves who had purchased the bitcoins and instructed Freeman to deposit the money into the bitcoin wallets or their online lovers — and this despite Freeman’s best efforts to try to protect those little old ladies from being defrauded. But love is blind and the little old ladies were insistent, even while keeping their online love affairs secret from their children and their banks. Indeed, if Freeman is responsible for their plight, why not the banks that wired the little old ladies’ monies to Freeman? If that doesn’t show extreme prejudice, I don’t know what does. Oh, did I mention that the government admitted in a pretrial motion that Freeman had not conspired with the scammers who were defrauding those little old ladies of their money? Did I also mention that the government did not charge Freeman with defrauding those little old ladies? And again, if the conspiracy-to-launder money charge was so substantial and valid, why was it necessary to try to entrap Freeman on a bogus money-laundering charge?
Ian Freeman deserves to be set free immediately. We can only hope that the Court of Appeals sees that. I will be there at the oral arguments and at the get-together at Trillium Brewing following the proceeding. I hope to see you all there.
