Melanie Neighbours On Witness Stand

Today was a very sad day. I heard from what I considered a good friend turn on another good friend during day 5’s Crypto6 trial. While I knew Melanie Neighbours had some misgivings I had never imagined that she would actively work against Ian Freeman let alone lie- or at least mislead a jury on the witness stand.

Shortly after the March 2021 raid we communicated a number of times and I said to her there were two things I thought she should do in regard to her situation. One was not lie even if it was to Ian’s detriment. Ian Freeman could take care of himself I said, and two, don’t do anything to incriminate yourself or even remotely appear to be partaking in any activity that might be perceived as not-kosher.

Alas- she seems to have at least broken one of these pieces of advice. Why? Over a stupid squabble? Some insignificant issue she perceived to exist? Well, unfortunately yes. There was a question as to whether or not a mistake was made in certifying Ian’s assets vs the Shire Free Churches assets and what was little more than a minor oversight she turned into a flaming drama fest on the stand.  As a bookkeeper she certified Ian as having ~3 million dollars in assets of one kind or another.

Not everyone whose taken the stand to testify for the prosecution has done everything perfectly. Being questioned by a prosecutor or lawyer can be quite nerve wracking after all! One witness who should have been favorable to the defense (though forced to testify against Ian Freeman) let (however unintentionally) the prosecutor lead her to a mistaken answer. That was correctly fixed by the defense re-asking the question differently. No hard feelings. It happens. The damage could be huge, but the defense fixed it. We’re all human.

This? This is going to take a lot more time to heal. That said Ian Freeman’s got one of the biggest hearts and I bet he’d even forgive you despite this attack. Maybe there is more to the story I’m not seeing still. Maybe this was the plan all along. I’m going to hope it really was just a squabble over some irrelevant detail, because the alternative is you are the biggest piece of shit Melanie.  If you were working for the feds all along you are lower than low and I will NEVER forgive you. Feds don’t deserve forgiveness. Anyone else… even the most depraved human beings I can forgive, but NOT people who create a living out of others misery.

I’ll end on a positive note. The Crypto6 protest went great! ~16 people came out to the trial today and ~50 turned up to our little protest outside the federal courthouse in Concord. The video(s) I recorded are below.

 

https://www.freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/dec-12-2022-protest-crypto6-federal-courthouse-concord/part1-dec-12-22-protest-concord-federal-court-crypto6.mp4

 

http://freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/dec-12-2022-protest-crypto6-federal-courthouse-concord/part2-dec-12-22-protest-concord-federal-court-crypto6.mp4

Crypto6 Trial Day 3

We had a turnout of ~15 supporters throughout the day. Not bad~ given we’ve got 10-14+ days of trial here. We’re up to maybe ~55 folks who have come out and supported (some may be on multiple days) so far. I want to say thank you to all those who have taken time off work (even if only for half a day) to come out and support Ian & the crypto6. A supportive community is one of the things that make living in New Hampshire like nowhere else.

One of the best parts of the day was when Mr Bitcoin entertained us in the morning by trying to enter the courthouse!

Here is the video:

http://freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/mr-bitcoin-denied-access-to-supposedly-public-trial.mp4

 

Here is a summary of the days goings on:

Prosecutor continues asking questions of the last witness from the prior day’s trial.

FinCEN employee Theodore Valahakis
Q Shire Cryptocoin operation directed at kiosk?
A Yes
Q Why was the letter sent?
A General campaign
It was to identify non-compliant businesses
The letter is not itself the registration requirement, and so a business must register whether or not they get a letter
Defense cross examination:
Q Jury should not assume Ian Freeman was placed on any notice by the federal government?
A Correct
Prosecutor introduces new witness to stand
Name: Kathryn Thibault
FBI agent
24 years with FBI
Prior experience: state trooper Maryland
Role: Supervisor
Based out of Knoxville, TN
Does polygraph work
Prior worked in Bedford NH
Worked on: Child exploitation & white collar crime, example: bank fraud, money laundering, and romance scams
Romance scams usually target people through social media where scammers befriend people and then deplete the persons of all their money claiming they need funds and the scams usually focus on elderly victims.
Ways scammers send money: Master card / Visa cards
-Cash transactions
-Wire money
-Personal checks
-Bitcoin
Money mule: a person who moves assets from those they don’t know for obstruction from other persons
Scammer grooms person to become mule
Then the mule moves money to another account
Hard to ID where everything is ending up
Q Part of Ian Freeman investigation?
A Yes
2017
Lead case agent till 2020
Did lots of interviews
Chats were not available while working on case
Ian Freeman’s PC was not available
I interviewed with people doing wire transfers for Mr Freeman
I based investigation on suspicious activity report
Q how many SARs did you review?
A More than 100
I did not interview 100 though
I focused on New Hampshire with only a few
Q Did you have another source of info?
A Yes, local police
Q Where were the victims located?
A All over the country
Q What was the average age?
A Over 65
Q Did the investigation involve banks?
A Yes
Q Another part of case?
[hmm she sounds coached]
A Kiosks
Q How did you find these Kiosks?
A Through online site coinmaps
Then I bought bitcoin at kiosks
Q Why?
A To see what was required to buy from kiosk and to see what wallet the coins came from
Q Was this your money?
A No, it was government money
Q Where were the machines?
A Murphy’s taproom, 101 local goods
They asked how much to buy and then scan for QR codes on phone containing wallet addresses
Then you feed the bills in and it sends bitcoin to your wallet
Q How long does it take?
A No very
Q Did it require a name?
A No
Q Did it require a drivers license?
A No
Q Did it require a photo?
A No
Q Did it require a phone #?
A No
Q Did you buy at a machine not owned by Ian Freeman?
A Yes, and it required a state ID, no prepaid phone # was allowed, and the owner communicated with the buyer
Q Was finger print scanner required on Ian Freeman’s machine?
A Not to my knowledge
Crypto vend rules:
1. Must use own wallet
2. Crypto is your responsibility to keep safe
3. All sales final
4. Do not tell our staff why you are buying bitcoin
Q Is that what you experienced?
A Yes
Q “If you believe something went wrong please contact us at”…
Witness identifies email in letter from FinCEN matches letter on machine
[note this is evidence displayed on a screen]
name on email of vending machine matches email sent by ian to free giveaway price winner
Phone # matches rules sign and localbitcoin data old phone #
[again evidence displayed on a screen]
I obtained a warrant for search of Ian Freeman’s residence based on this
The house is a duplex
73 is right hand side
73 is where Ian Freeman lives
75 is on left hand side is where Mr Nobody lives
Q Please describe it
A White structure, green, white

Special agent tivo
Q Were you able to ID a video from internet related to front porch?
A Yes
Q Where?
A On Odysee
Q Interview occurred after?
A yes
Q Did you watch clip of video?
A Yes
Q Did the full video have audio?
A Yes
Q Was freeman speaking?
A Yes
Q What is it?
A It’s a stop sign
It says stop and then “paying taxes”
[this has been on the porch as long as I’ve lived in New Hampshire since pre-2016 and numerous people have lived and rented here, this doesn’t actually tell you ANYTHING, but it is intended to bias the jury against the defense… in practice the Shire Free Church does pay taxes or the property would have been seized long ago]
Q What was on 75 side?
A Living room with kitchen upstairs
Q Any shrine?
A No
Q Any chapel?
A No
Q Any meeting rooms?
A No
Q Were others living at 73 side?
A Yes
It was a mirror image of other side, but living room was a radio station
[this is wrong, it’s got recording equipment for a radio show, radio stations require big antennas and all sorts of stuff you’d not find at this address]
Q Any shrine?
A No
Q Any chapel?
A No
Q Any meeting rooms?
A No
The prosecutor brings up a picture of the radio studio as evidence
On left is radio equipment, chair, documents
Desk is behind chair
Q What is procedure of search?
A Take pictures of house is necessary before conducting search
Then take picture when everything of interest is found
Everyone volunteered to help with search
[something tells me this was a paid gig, but on the other hand 365 days of criticizing the feds on Free Talk Live is probably is incentive enough, not that I’m unsure about them being paid]
If anyone has a question they ask me if we should take it
Photo shows folder and the folder has “FBI Crypto” on it
Another has “IRS Bullshit” on it
[this is weird, all it could do is bias a jury against a defense and has no value other than to show Ian Freeman dislikes the government, it doesn’t reveal if he paid taxes, but it suggests he was at least doing something in regard to government demands, certainly that isn’t what the government was trying to do with the photo though]
[humorously the photo also shows shire society and signers on it, a rosary, and peace signs hanging on the wall related to the church that is “fake”, but no one mentions these]
Defense cross examines witness
SAR report interviews Renee Spinella & Andrew Spinella
Q Did you link a scammer with Ian Freeman?
A No
Q Don’t scammers often team up with money launders?
A I don’t know
Q Did you know Ian Freeman required ID?
A I didn’t know that
Q How many devices did you try in state that weren’t Ian Freemans?
A Don’t know
Q How many require ID in the state?
A I don’t know
Q How many machines did you look at?
A I only compared Ian Freemans 6 and 1 other non-Ian Freeman machine
I looked on YouTube for how machines worked
[she has no idea how many if any require a fingerprint/ID]
Q You shouldn’t draw generalizations from 1 machine, right?
A I can’t tell you what to do
Q Do you know how long machine was at Murphy’s Taproom?
A No
Q Know of any complaints?
A No
Did not ask owner of bar about issues or complaints
It was not part of my investigation
“Don’t talk to staff sign” is shown
Q Have you seen signs like that before?
A No
Q But only looked at one other machine, right?
A Correct
Q Part of process to buy crypto was to agree to it, right?
A Not really
[apparently terms don’t matter if you don’t have to click an I agree button … so much for the internet full of privacy policies and other terms of service]
Q Sign though says that right?
A Yes
Q Are you able to verify FinCEN letter ever got to email?
A No
Q You were at the search in Keene on site agent?
A Yes
Q Was this a violent search?
A “officer safety”
Q Ian Freeman was non-violent?
A Yea
We know he was not violent
But but “lots of people had weapons”
And and were “coming and going”
Q Were people displaying weapons day of search?
A No
We had several months of footage from cameras focused on the house
Q You were spying on completely innocent people?
A We were checking people
Q Would you have checked my license if I had been there?
A Yes
Q Why was the specific day of search selected?
A Lots of people involved, coordination
Q Asked about shrine, does that mean a building can’t be used as a church?
A Well not that I would recognize
Q Is there something specific that makes it a church?
A No
[wow- so umm it could be a church then????]
Q You heard of radio ministries right?
A Yes
Q Ian filed a form for religious purposes?
A Yes, but it had a PO Box on it
[this is wrong, it had a mailing address similar to a PO box though]
Q How long did the search take?
A The whole day
Q How did you search?
A Used a swat team
“gave opportunity to leave on own”
“they did not exit on own”
Q What time was the search taking place?
A 6AM it was, dark out
Q People are generally still asleep at that hour right?
A Yes
Q Before searching did you do due diligence and know who was coming and going? Did you do a criminal background check on residents?
A On some
Q No record and has right to carry?
A Ian freeman had no felonies
Q Did he have firearm?
A No
Q Matt roach?
A no felonies either
Nobody had criminal record
Q You know who would be there right?
A No
[At 6am??? If this was a 6PM raid, ok, but after 5 year investigation they know exactly who is home at 6AM, maybe she is a liar, or just incompetent, but either way I sure hope this came off right to the jury as one or the other or both]
Q Does the Freeman house have security cameras with the ability to video record?
A Yes
Q Did you know agents tried to destroy his cameras?
A I know they attempted to disable
[they showed video of them intentionally damaging the cameras, not disabling them]
Q What is a bearcat?
A It’s an armored vehicle used by police for tactical purposes
[yea, sourced from the military and designed for the military no thanks to government programs]
Q Is that what is in the video?
A Yes
Q How many people from swat team were there?
A I don’t know
[there were 56 FBI agents there according to the prosecutor from one of the very first hearings]
They play a video of explosives being thrown at window

Q What were tact team equipped with?
A Shields…
Q Looks like automatic weapon, no?
A Yes
[conveniently failing to mention the most obvious stuff from the video]
Q How many agents? 6?
A Yes
Q What did agent rip down?
A That was for officer safety!
I don’t know what that was
[they ripped down a peace sign, but she conveniently won’t admit what it was.. seems to be a pattern here of the government agents not recognizing stuff indicative of a ministry]
Q Any indication that there was any verbal resistance?
A I don’t know
Q Any reports of threats?
A Not that I know of
Video of Mr Nobody is played for court
Q Any firearms or weapons?
A It does not appear in that frame
[what about the other frames??]
Video of Matt coming out of house is played for court
Q What is Matt Roach’s attire?
A He is in a t-shirt and has no shoes on
Q Any resistance from Matt?
A No
Video of Ian coming out is played for court
Q What is Ian Freeman’s attire?
A Sweatshirt
Q Who is with him?
A Dog
[I guess Ian Freeman wasn’t about to let them shoot the dog, he’s holding him in the video as he comes out, certainly to protect him from the police as they like to shoot dogs]
Video of Bonnie coming out is played for court
Q The one you weren’t sure was there?
A Yea
[this women interrogated Bonnie and lied about it on the stand for some reason or other]
Q Does she have anything on feet?
A I can’t see in this frame
[how convenient, she’s avoiding answering the question, Bonnie was barefoot and made to put on shoes with glass in them]
Q Any indication of resistance?
A No
They play a video of an agent attempting to and actually destroying a camera with what was I believe an automatic firearm
Q What is agent doing?
A Disabling camera
Q Is this standard procedure?
A I’m not on swat team so I wouldn’t know
Q Might be that they didn’t want to see people like a jury seeing them do bad stuff?
A We are professionals!
[she acts all shocked!]
[ room laughs hysterically given we’ve all just watched video of them behave unprofessionally and then lie about it, the judge however erupts in anger at the courtroom because of automatic reactions people have when other people say absolutely batshit crazy stuff, at least some of this video including the FBI destroying the camera is posted publicly and available at TheCrypto6.com or on odysee directly at https://odysee.com/$/embed/FBI-Raids-FTL-2021/beccf363b14222723dde8bad26f18c4ed3a0136b?r=uzeVx1wy6w7bXhFWKiHNnHAiQvPfC7kA ]
Q What is that?
A Bearcat with battering ram
Q People already came out right?
A I wouldn’t know. I don’t know if this was cut.
[I’m not certain if this video is all at TheCrypto6.com, but it probably is and you can tell the order of stuff happening based on the time stamps on the video]
Prosecution now cross cross examines the witness
Q Was this the only search?
A No
Several other sites in state were searched
Q Did any others have swat teams?
A No
[this is interesting given that I’m 99.999% sure that other searches involved folks who owned firearms also which means “officer safety” was nothing more than an excuse to target the person they were really wanting to hurt, ie because Ian Freeman is behind Free Talk Live and Ian Freeman’s show has people on criticizing not just the government but the FBI, IRS, Treasury, and every other government agencies every night for 3 hours 365 days a a year on around 200 radio stations and then other outlets as well ]
Q Why swat this location?
A High power rifles and a full size sword
[what she is calling a sword was Mr Nobody’s gardening tool]
Q Was anyone hurt in this event?
A No
[this is actually incorrect, the victims that the feds were targeting were injured by the feds blowing in of a window and Bonnie or Ian’s girlfriend, now wife received aid after release from federal detainment, and the primary one injured was not involved in cryptocurrency sales or the reason for which they were raiding and no charges or accusations have ever been made about Bonnie during this investigation]
Q Where was the call out?
A It happened
[keep in mind they played the video which showed the FBI pulling up to the house and at no time did they call out unless a flash bang grenade is now what constitutes calling out]
“They just didn’t cooperate”
[it’s a few minutes after 6am so even if they had called out it’s unlikely anyone would have heard it given they were asleep, but I was not and fortunate enough to have good instincts and some forewarning and arrived before anyone inside new the feds were outside about to bust in, and I watched and filmed the whole raid from across the street, and then a block away and can attest to the fact that no “call out” occurred as was required by the warrant given it wasn’t a no-knock issued warrant]
Q Time?
A 6AM
Q Once the residence was secured what happens?
A Swat then leaves
Q What were you wearing?
A Cargo pants traditional pants
[I think what he was trying to demonstrate was just how cold it was outside and what outrageous conditions they made the victims of the raid suffer through, remember one person had no shoes on! It was something in the negatives, I want to say -20 below, but even if it was only freezing it was COLD and people were made to wait outside for a bit]
Q How far is Matt’s bedroom from Ian’s bedroom?
A Not far
A picture of matts room is shown to the court
Q You know what was found in matts room?
A Weapons, firearms
Q Do you see a bunch of weapons?
A Yes
Defense cross examines witness
Q You knew of Matt Roach before the search right?
A Yes
Q You knew he had no criminal record, right?
A Yes
Q You know he had a completely separate room right?
A Yes
Q There was a call out right?
A Yes
Q Do you know that dust or flakes are occurring in the video?
A I don’t know
[it’s a video that clearly shows a flash bang grenade of some kind being thrown at the house and going off]
Q Do you know if a flash bang grenade is a call out?
A No
[is she seriously suggesting she does not know if a flash bang grenade is a call out? If this doesn’t destroy her credibility with the jury there is no hope for a win at this trial]

[ Day 3 continued, as I ran out of time to include the rest of the the original story here it is below ]

New witness called

Name: Kevin Mccusker

FBI agent

Portland main office

2 years with this office

Prior he was with the Boston field office

His was part of the white collar crime squad

Duties included:

Gathering evidence and info and speak to witnesses about violations of federal law

[ I believe this is the defense cross examining below and the prosecutor mostly just asked questions about the guys qualifications above ]

Q Background info before volunteering?

A Yes

Q You aware of warrant

A Yes

Q Role?

A Assisted in search of residence

A photo of the studio is presented as evidence on screen

A crypto photo is shown

Q Did you hear anything?

A No

Q Call out?

A No

Q Flash bang grenade ?

A Don’t recall

Q How far away were you?

A ~1-2 blocks

Q How many total agents?

A “I don’t know”

15-20 maybe

The amount was appropriate based on the size of the search

[56 is the correct number of FBI agents according to the prosecutor from an early hearing, but there were many many more law enforcement agents and others there]

Q What does that window look like?

[This is a window on the Free Talk Live’s Studio of which they were raiding]

A Broken

Q Do you know why?

A No, not specifically

New Witness

Manchester Police Detective

Name: feather ? [it was hard to hear]

Patrol officer

He was on a task force for FBI: state st task force

It focused on drugs and violent crime

Q Sometimes you help other groups?

A Yes

Q Who did you help?

A Katie

Several search warrants

Where: 142 Chestnut Rd, Derry NH

Q Had info?

A Search warrant had minimal information

Photo of house shown on screen [like above]

Q Involved in swat?

A No

Looking for electronic devices

Found 2 phones

New witness

Special agent

Name: Scott Odonell

FBI Bedford residential agency

27 Years with FBI

Helping with search

“general review”

Information on what to seize

659 Marlboro St in Keene

 

 

 

 

[This is Aria’s house, a co-defendant in the case that took a plea deal]

The government put up a bedroom photo

Explained found cellular telephone on bed

The agent interviewed aria briefly

[ Aria was smart enough to be what they’d call uncooperative, providing no useful information voluntarily for them to use against her ]

New witness

Detective

Name: U Kaljita

Brookline police Department, MA

A detective since 2015

Patrol

Certified forensics examiner

Worked for computer crimes laboratory

Did cell phone and call line analysis

Qualifications included:

12 week course in advanced crime scene analysis

Learned about bitcoin

1. How to acquire data from difference devices
2. Continuing education
3. CCPA self certified basic and advanced forensics analysis

ID and preserve device in field

In lab same role take measures to preserve data

Specialized in general digital forenstics

Most common is cell phone

Examples ~1,000 phones

Certified in tool used with cell phone

Celltrack program used to preserve data and make human readable

Catalogs into pictures videos etc

Produces compressed image (cell brite)

Role: extract, process, review, and examine Ian’s devices

[this was weird, because it seems they are taking Aria’s devices and then saying they are ian’s not really clear]

Exhibit #1

hdd contains three cell brite reports

Did you analyze three devices maintained

Q Is examination similar?

A Yes, of Ians 3 phones examined, photo’d and assigned unique ID

Analyzed in Chelsea, MA

• no network
• take sim card out

This is important because people can remotely wipe phones

[wipe is another term for delete the contents of the phones, and thus evidence]

Q Next?

A Notes on devices

Q Then?

A extract data from device with cell brite tool premium

Q How do you know it’s accurate?

A Hash of data file alphanumeric value, like a fingerprint like 15- digits and can be longer but not sure how big

Q How do you use to know you made accurate copy?

A Check the values match

Q Did you check the value of all three devices?

A Yes

Cell brite physical analyzer

At first in digital format

Tool makes 1’s and 0’s human readable

ie pictures, videos, etc

Q Is that what can be searched?

A Yes

Q Is this like on phone?

A No

The government puts up a picture of photo data that has been extracted, or more like meta data, information about the phone

It includes same email as listed in localbitcoin.com data bitcoinbombshell user

I sent report to case agent

Q Do you get everything?

A Not always

We make a bit for bit copy

Q Can you get deleted data?

A Sometimes

I may have remnants of data but not all data

[ this is how people get convicted of murder when they didn’t actually murder anyone, those remnants of data may be “How to kill” but not include “mocking bird”, the one makes you think they searched for how to kill someone and if combined with the later just looking up a classic book ]

New witness

Chris Rietman

Q PA to NH? Why?

A It was more expensive to live in PA than NH, loss of rights

Q Why NH?

A I looked around country and found NH

Q Why NH?

[Notice the prosecutor here is trying to force him to say he’s a free stater because there are folks on the jury who indicated that they hate free staters yet still are on the jury]

A It’s the live free or die state

Libertarian

I’m not a free stater

Small L libertarian

A persons rights need to be respected

As long as you are not infringing on anothers rights you should be free to do what you like

Q Why Alstead?

A High speed internet and not too far out and affordable

Southwest NH fit the bill better than other locations

Q Did you meet Ian Freeman?

A Yes, when we moved

It was suggested we attend a meetup with a bunch of people

Q Is he your friend?

A Yes

Q Met a few times?

A Yes

Q You testify via agreement with government?

A Yes, for $40

[this was hilarious, the government was paying him to testify, hmm might bias him in favor of what the government wants him to say]

Q What have you been doing in NH?

• PC [repair?] work
• Routers to avoid government survailance
• Start business
• Route 101 goods llc
• Mighty Moose Mart

Q Who owns building?

A Rented from Shire Free Church Holding LLC

Q Tenent?

A Ian Freeman

Are you a member ?

No one has told me they are members of the Shire Free Church, but Ian is

Q You paid rent?

A Yes- gave deal on rent when starting business

Q Direction of chruch for crypto church of new hampshire

A Yes [I think]

Q Do you know religious principle?

A No

Q Have you been to a service?

A No

Q Did it stay 101 good till today?

A No

Q Why closed?

A People don’t buy gifts often

Changed to convenience store

Q Arrangement changed?

A Ian invested in business, yes, no rent if we kept space for Bitcoin embassy.

[this is actually an incorrect understanding of what the situation was… as a part owner in the business here I can attest to the fact that the convenience store rented a portion of the building from the shire free church, but as the shire free church was investing in the business too it provided the space at no charge… though this could have changed with some future negotiation once the business was off the ground potentially]

Q Was there a vending machine prior?

A Yes

Q Who was the owner?

A I don’t know, Ian operated it

Q Were you happy to have it on when you took over?

A Yes

Q Why do you like bitcoin?

A Not subject to whims of banks and politics, the dollar lost 98% of its value

Q Did you know bitcoin was pseudo anonymous?

A Yes, there is no name associated, it just works

No law can change bitcoin, it doesn’t care

Q Did you have keys to the machine?

A No, originally no

Q Do you know how it works?

A In general yes

Q Did you make video?

A No

Q Are you in video?

A Yes

[you can watch the video they played in court yourself here: https://freekeene.com/2018/08/19/how-to-buy-cryptocurrency-like-bitcoin-and-dash-in-under-two-minutes-in-keene-nh/ ]

They have terms of service of the vending machine blown up and on screen to read

Part of it said:

~”our staff don’t need to know what you use them for”

Q Video about dash?

A Yes

Q What did QR provide?

A It was to wallet

Q Did they have to ID?

A No

Q Is that how it worked?

A Yea, thats how it worked

had two keys and one let you in machine

Q What did machine charge?

A It charged no more than 14%, but it was based on market rates and changed over time, 8-14%

2017 or 2018 maybe

Q Neither had ID?

A No, it was not enabled

Q What was your role?

A I helped with machines if people had questions

Q Did you get compensation?

A I don’t remember, but most value was bringing people into the store

[I think he’s referring to when it was 101 goods here as I don’t think the Mighty Moose Mart business received anything from the machine, as that was entirely separate, something I made sure of before investing in the Mighty Moose Mart business]

I follow the principle in life I don’t need to know what you do with your money

Up to $5,000 limit

Q Did you talk to people putting money into machines?

A Yes

I did not what to know that people investing and certainly not if they doing something criminal

Q Could you do serial transactions?

A I suppose, but I never saw anyone do that

If something was troubling we would ask people to leave

A man who owned a small business for example said that they were ~”going to cut off power and I need to pay in bitcoin”

I told him it was a scam

In another incident a women came in with lots of cash to buy bitcoin

Women would get money from someone for auto parts

If we suspect scam we would stop it

Q Did you see mostly older people?

A No, all ages

High school kids all the way up to elderly

Occasionally we had family member buy bitcoin

love of life once and romance scam

Q Did you talk to Ian to do anything to stop it?

A No

Q Did you do anything?

A Yes, I made a sign to warn people of common scams

A photo with a sign saying Bitcoin Scam Warning is shown as evidence

Q But no change in functionality of machine?

A No

Q You said you had interest in bitcoin?

A Yes

Q Did you have an idea for bitcoin?

A Yes, I had idea to put bitcoin machines in airports

Q Did you decide your machines would have KYC/ be registered?

A Yes, a minimum of KYC

Q Did Ian see it?

A Yes

Q Did he have an interest?

A Yes, “no, not for me” he said

[this is hearsay, but I’m sure also true]

Q Did he ever talk to you about other machines?

A Yes, 3-4

Q Did you know he had other methods for trading Bitcoin?

A Selling bitcoin yes

[note how chris does not say trading bitcoin, he says yes to selling bitcoin]

Not know anything about it other than localbitcoin.com

Q Did he ask you to do any of this?

A I was frustrated with td bank at the time

I told him I would shut down my account

He asked if he could use it to I guess sell bitcoin

Q Did you sign agreement?

A Yes

Shows the agreement to assist shire bitcoin outreach operation 2017 on screen

Q Did ian pay you from time to time?

A Yes

ian admin

chris: assistant

Q Do you know who wrote the agreement?

A No

Agreement has to turn over account for exchange outreach

non-taxable

bitcoin undermines state going to war

20% pd to assistant

chris says made $100-1500 in early days / month

Q How were you paid?

A pd by check, cash app, or similar

Q Did you sign td bank [blank] checks and hand to freeman?

A Yes

Q Did you have to deal with account issues from time to time?

A Yes

Usually when my account was being scammed and people would claim deposit in wrong account and bank would give scammer money back

I would talk to teller sometimes

Q Did you ever talk to customer of freemans business?

A No

Q Did you open bitcoin account for exchange for freeman?

A No, not worth the time, too much paperwork

Q Did you open a 2nd bank account?

A Yes, Bank of america

Q Did you intend to use for 101 local goods?

A I intended to provide freeman access

[I believe they have put up a bank statement document on screen of which chris is referencing to give these answer ]

Q How much money?

A $787,300.63 in 1 month

Q Is counter credit cash?

A I guess

Q $185,000 huffman 4 transactions

Schmit $65,000

Said it was wire for orphanage

outgoing wires all say to ian freeman

and checks too

Q Not made to shire free church right?

A Yes

[Yea, except that doesn’t mean it wasn’t for the shire free church, you can write your legal name or the name of your business and BOTH are acceptable to the bank]

Q Did you want to stop?

A Yes, banks were getting irritable by cash deposits, and it took too much of my time

They show a document on screen as evidence that says it’s a termination agreement

2/12/2020

It includes a $6,000 severance

Resignation from crypto churhc

The defense now cross examines Chris Rietman

Q you were involved in it for quite a while?

A Yes

Q Why did you gravitate to it?

A It was money not controlled by banks and governments

Q Good arrangement for you?

A Yes, 101 local goods was not doing well and this supplemented the income for the business

Q Is Ian a good guy?

A Yea

Q Kept agreements?

A Yes

Q Did he ever indicate he operated a money laundering service or worked with scammers?

A No

Q What did he express?

A He expressed gratitude someone was using bitcoin for good, to build orphanages overseas

Q Did he encourage you to prey on old ladies?

A No

Q What did scam warning sign say?

A Bitcoin Scam Alert

it included information on common scams like romance scams and utility bill scams

It was in a public space where people would see it

Q Why was it called a vending machine?

A The term vending machine means one way, it’s not connected to the banks

A vending machine is something you put money into and get something of value out of

Q Who owned it?

A Ian or the the shire free church

Q Product sold was by church, someone else?

A Yes

It did not go out to third party, it was sending it’s own product to individuals, yes

[this is super important, because if it had sold someone elses bitcoin it would be an exchange and not a vending machine and an exchange would be regulated under money transmission laws]

Q The terms of service said “you must use a QR code from wallet you control”, Why?

A he does not want third party involved in transaction

Another term was “Don’t need to know you want them”

Q Did anyone explain why they wanted anything at 101 local goods?

A No, no where they got there money from

Q What were the demographics of people using the machine?

A They were all over the place

Q It wasn’t a hang out for some particular demographic?

A Right

Q Did freeman ever say to let people be scammed?

A Ian was like we shouldn’t care what people do with there own money

Q Was anyone concerned with fees?

A Yes

But the machines were charging about market rate

[I’d say they were below market rate during much of their operating life, though got more expensive as the government cause the cost of running things to go up, but still were well within market rate!!!]

[ An interesting thing occurred at this point that we noticed… there was a change in courtroom procedure because the public wasn’t standing for the judge, but we were standing for the jurors, and thus the judge is now walking in after the jurors whereas before he was walking in sitting down, and then having the jurors come in, the public was showing respect for the juror, but not the judge ]

chris rietman defense cross examination

kiosks

Q Lack of ID you agree right?

A Yes

Q Did anyone like that?

A Yes, it was nice for a $20 purchase

All people felt they should not have to ID just to buy something

fees were variable

I often asked % they were

I always expected the price to be higher

Checks

Q you kept account open?

A Yes

Q That account actually making 101 money, right?

A Yes

[ This is an important point the defense lawyer is making, while Ian was using those checks, this activity was bringing in money for 101 goods, so it was part of 101 goods business ]

Q How much did it make route 101 goods?

A I don’t recall, but we never retired

Maybe $1000-2000 / month

Q Same with other account?

A Yes

It was keeping our business alive

Q Ian was a pretty good landlord right?

A Yes

Ian was always willing to work with us during hard times

Q Good landlord then?

A Yes

Q good guy to be in business with?

A Yes

Q Good friend?

A Yes

Prosecutor asks some more questions of chris

Q You opened 101 local goods?

A Yes

Q You didn’t tell the bank the real reason for the account?

A They never asked

sometime would ask why open account and I’d explain we are a consignment shope

Q You could not stand by machine 24/7, right?

A Right

Q When open it could have taken ID?

A No

Because not enabled

Q Airport business would be vending business?

A yes

Q You said you would register with FinCEN?

If I got to a level I would be a money transmitter

two-way is why I’d need to register

The vending at 101 local goods store was not tied to exchanges, but in my idea it would connect to exchanges

This is why I’d have to register with FinCEN whereas the 101 local goods store vending machine operated by Ian did not have to register

Q What were fees?

A 5% up to 10% depending on a lot of factors

But always would have to be something

Q How much you made total?

A No idea

$6,000 was most we ever got

Defense asks more questions

Q Car scam would it be stopped if you showed license? Would it stop scam?

Prosecutor asks more questions

Q Id won’t stop illegal transaction?

A No

Q Drug dealer would think twice if ID?

A No, but I would have stopped them

Prosecution

Q Could ID stop some transactions though?

A Yes, some possibly

Next up for testifying is Colleene Fordham

61 years old

What does she do? Works at Mighty Moose Mart

Owner: Ian Freeman

Moved ~8 years ago from PA

Worked previously for delta insurance

Q Do you share same libertarian views as husband?

A Yes, but not as strongly

Q You were charged with money laundering and wire fraud and had an agreement to testify?

A yes

[ note: she didn’t take a plea deal, they dropped the charges, and the testify agreement was separate agreement not to bring other unrelated charges whether or not they were likely ]

Q How did 101 get started?

A Worked for thrift store in same location and got a brainy idea to start a craft store

Q Why was the store not successful?

A No, not really, not many people buy gifts often

Q Shire Free Church associated with Ian?

A Yes

Q His responsibility for machine?

A Ian came in and removed cash

Q Any responsibility?

A No

Q Anyone tell you why they used the machine?

A Yes

Q Who made the sign?

A Ian or Chris

Q Who used it?

A All types

Q Was ID Required?

A No

Q Did you find out about online selling?

A yes

Q Did you get asked to help?

A Yes, open bank accounts

Q You have agreement with freeman?

A Yes

Q How many accounts?

A 3

Q Did you sign blank checks to freeman?

A Yes

Q You have to deal with account issues?

A Yes

Q Happen often?

A No, but stressful because I didn’t deal with customers

They present a letter from an investigator for service credit union on screen

Q Why stressful ?

A Because I didn’t not how to handle it

“I sell rare coins like gold and silver”

Mr freeman wrote email

Q Happen often?

A No, 2 times

2018 letter goldbacks

Email to bank shown on screen proves ian did not hide bitcoin sales from banks as it explains what happens and who colleene and shire free church are.

Defense cross examines colleene fordham

Q You made a deal with government right?

A Yes, money laundering and wire fraud

Q Did you consider yourself as someone involved with money laundering or co-conspiring with one?

A No

Q Any agreement to launder money?

A No

Q Freeman on church own building?

A Yes

Q Good person to do business with?

A Yes

He is not capable of doing the sorts of things he is accused of

Q He never expressed interest in scams?

A No

Q Freeman didn’t oversea machine did right?

A Yea

Q What were the age groups that used the machine?

A 20s to 70s

Q No specific demographic?

A No

Q He would not have known if something was shady?

A No

Q Did law enforcement ever ask about the machines?

A No

Q Do cops come in?

A Yes

Q Just right there right?

A You couldn’t miss it

[Note: the fbi actually missed the machines because they were too stupid to realize that the bitcoin vending machine was in the bitcoin embassy and even raided the wrong location, they raided the mighty moose mart convience store, stole a safe, a point of sale machine, and 15 minutes later realized their mistake and returned the items ]

Q There has always been a machine in the building?

A Yes, since I’ve been there

Q you were getting something?

A Yes

Q Did he ask you to lie to banks?

A No, he discouraged it MAJORLY

Q He’s not hiding? He is writing letter right?

A Correct

Letter says “church mission is selling bitcoin online”

“We ID to stop fraud”

[Note: the letter related to online selling of bitcoin by the church, not the vending machines, as other methods were used to stop scams there, ie scam warning sign]

Q Ian is taking it upon himself to explain whats going on with the scam?

A Right

Q He is saying clearly that it is him involved in the trade right?

A Yes

Q He is not hiding the fact he is selling bitcoin to a bank investigator, right?

A Right

[this is important because the government is claiming he is misleading the banks when it fact he does tell the banks how the shire free church operates, who colleene fordham is and her relationship to the church’s operating, what bitcoin is, using the term bitcoin, etc]

Q He is giving a lot of info to the bank rep right?

A Yea

Q Still a convenience store?

A Yes

Q Is Ian still treating you fairly?

A Yes

[the prosecutors own evidence shows ian is innocent]

Prosecutor asks questions now

Q not gold and silver coins, right?

A No

[the letter says like rare coins like gold and silver, not that the thing being sold were traditional coins and bitcoin is often compared to gold and silver, it’s like it in its value, in that it is a result of being rare]

Q Not true right?

A No

[Colleene Fordham is not a technical person, she barely has a crypto wallet, and what she had hadn’t been utilized ~4 years, she doesn’t understand the question here very well]

Cross examination by the defense now:

Q Bitcoin has the word coin in it right?

A Yes

Q It’s rare, right?

A YES!

[She gets it now! Yes- bitcoin is rare coin, just not the type she was understanding or thinking]

Day 3 is over!

 

Crypto6 T-shirt Supporters Are Wearing

[ This story was updated on Dec 8 ~ 9:30 PM eastern to include more of the summary of the days testimony which I ran out of time to include prior, see further down for where the new edition starts ]

One thing to say is Ian’s lawyer is killing it. The prosecution’s doing such a terrible job that it appears they couldn’t convict a ham sandwich in a grand jury hearing where 99.99% of the time prosecutors win because there is no defense allowed.

Come out and support the Crypto6’s Ian Freeman in OUR fight against tyranny and the state. Plenty of people showed up on Tuesday throughout to support the cause. Questions are going around about the mask and ID policy. Unfortunately the court has instituted a mask required policy and a new ID policy in an attempt to deny supporters of the Crypto6 entrance. As a result of prior incidents at the court involving ID and other government monitoring of supporters the court has instituted these policies. It’s possible that someone will try to justify these policies as not being the result of our support. However the facts speak for themselves. The government instituted the ID policy in late November ~ about 30 days prior to the trial. Evidence of this has been posted above. Until jury selection and trial began there was no mask policy or no enforcement thereof. I’ve been to dozens of court hearings in the past year and none of them required a mask. Now you might be thinking- maybe it’s to protect people because there are so many people in the room. This is non-sense. The judge instructed the room that they could remove the masks on Wednesday following the exit of the jurors from the room. This policy or enforcement thereof has nothing to do with the guise of safety. It has to do with keeping supporters out. The justification by the court for the masks is due to CDC guidance when in fact the CDC has NOT recommended masks for quite some time maybe ~6 months or even much longer now.

I’d encourage people not to let this stop you from partaking in observation of the trial and the hearing. The best way to counter these policies and their main aim (to keep us out) is to resist, but ultimately comply. Compliance ensures we put up a fight while still achieving the greater aim. Ultimately this is the only thing we can really do in regard to any of these draconian efforts to undermine the guise of what they call the justice system. That is protest- fight- but do so peaceably as we always have. It’s peace that demonstrates who the real aggressors are.

My resistance led to a 45 minute delay on Tuesday and resulted in me missing part of the jury selection process. It was the best day to resist as not much happens during jury selection that is actually public despite it being “public”. No, it’s not ian that has been secretive, and having something to hide. It’s the court, it’s the government. ~3 hours of classical music playing in the background to inhibit the public from hearing the quiet whispers is right out of the soviet era. A tactic of suppressing dissent while giving the appearance of having an “open” and “free” or democratic system.

We can resist AND support Ian and freedom in more than one way simultaneously. For those who come to the main room there are free the crypto6 t-shirts that say Bitcoin is not a crime available. No charge. I will graciously accept contributions to offset the printing costs however, but more importantly is people find me and get a t-shirt. I have hundreds of crypto6 t-shirts left and I want them GONE by the time this trial is over.

What happened during Day 2 of the trial?

About 15 supporters of the Crypto6 came out to support the trial. Good job guys! Some interesting notes of the day. Where the defense had 1 layer the prosecution’s team had 6 lawyers on the prosecutions side that we know of. Other lawyers likely were helping with the case elsewhere or on other days. The disproportionate funds being spent by government to attack people are far greater than those any individual can generally afford to put into a defense as the government generally isn’t paying for a good defense.

Prosecutor

The prosecutor starts by calling Alex Commoli to the stand. Alex Commoli has an undergrad degree, has a law degree, is an attorney, and a forensics annalist.

She is involved in cyber money laundering, drugs, virtual currency, and works as a case agent alongside prosecutors. She said she worked for the “virtual currency evolving threats unit” for 5-6 years and partook in training activities. She also has worked (exclusively) online as an undercover to “infiltrate online communities”.

Q What was your role in this case?

A Looked at records

She would purchase bitcoin as an undercover agent from localbitcoins.com

Q Do you have a basic understanding of how crypto works?

A Yes

Fiat is currency backed by a government.

Q Do you have a bank account?

A Yes

Q What was the process for opening a bank account?

A Provide ID so they know who you are

Q When purchasing a car with a check whose involved in the transaction?

A Me, you, and two banks

Q What are the banks doing?

A debiting my account and crediting yours

Q In virtual space how would you do this? What does this case use?

A Bitcoin, instead of a check we do it in bitcoin

example 1 bitcoin for car

Q How do we do this transaction?

A Need something to store, send, receive

Q How do we get this?

A Via a wallet, a wallet stores Bitcoin

Q Where is the wallet gotten from?

A There are hardware wallets and web wallets

Q Both have wallets?

A There is a public and private key, an address is like a bank account

Q Private key?

A It’s equivalent to a pin or signature authority, it’s a super secure string #

Q Your wallet to my mine, how many entities are involved?

A Two. You and me.

Q For banks how many entities are involved?

A At least 4 for banks

Q How do we keep score in bitcoin?

A It’s done on the blockchain the same way banks do debits and credits

Q How do I see it?

A Download or via a website

Q How many digits is wallet?

A About ~26 to 36, I can’t remember exactly

It shows ABC2 sent money to ABC1.

Shows amount, time, and other info.

Q Wallet, time, and amount?

A Yes

Bitcoin network verifies transactions

There is no entity that is blockchain

Q Identity notification on blockchain?

A Yes

It’s pseudo anonymous

Q Could I figure out every transaction you made?

A Yes

anonymous means you can’t know

pseudo anonymous means you can know

Q Is the bank pseudo anonymous?

A No

Names are on your checks and banks know who you are

Q Can you investigate a check?

A Police can and a bank can

Q For Bitcoin?

A You can call police, but no recalling is possible

The transaction can’t be undone

It’ can’t be pulled back

Q “anonymous and unrecoverable?”

A Yes

[ The witness falsely indicates here and contradicts what she said earlier that bitcoin is psudo anonymous ]

Q Previously we presumed we already had bitcoin. If we don’t have it how do we get into it?

A Mining. The most common way is through exchanges. Places you can buy crypto..

Q Dollars to bitcoin conversation requires what?

A ID, passport, email, and other info

Q What is another way to do cash to bitcoin?

A LocalBitcoins.com

It’s like craigslist or ebay

It has different options for payment

ie it’s peer to peer or person to person

Q Another way?

Often they will go offline

Q Private sale?

A Yes

Q Other ways?

A Kiosks

You put in money and get bitcoin out

Q LocalBitcoins.com is an investigation you worked on?

A I can confirm Ian Freeman used LocalBitcoins?

[This is technically a false statement, as a forensics expert she only can confirm that someone passing through an internet connection registered in Ian’s name and might be Ian used LocalBitcoins, but it could also be another user, a name in a fraudulent account, or someone proxying through the connection, I have computer forensics training and a computer science degree, and much of what is said by computer forensics “experts” is just wrong or misleading, and this case is no different]

Q We will go through records from LocalBitcoins.com, you have been a buyer here?

A Yes

Q How?

A You put in how much of a % you want to sell and payment methods

Q Like ads for buyers?

A Yes

Q So you found an ad you liked now how do you start?

A Looked for terms like ID required

Q How do you start?

A You enter an amount and click trade. A chat box then opens with the seller.

Q How do you get money to sender?

A LocalBitcoins.com acts as an escrow service. So seller can’t make off with your money without releasing crypto. Can be done with gift cards, wires, etc. Bitcoin is released once the terms are fulfilled.

Q Is feedback important?

A Yes

Feedback is like that on Amazon and Uber and other platforms.

Q Why is feedback important?

A Buyers choose sellers based on high feedback level

[At this point they pull up a record from LocalBitcoin.com]

[This shows information in a database that LocalBitcoin.com maintains pertaining to transactions purported to be in the name of ian, and different churches, and unknown parties ]

Username is important to people as they tend not to use full or their real name.

Real name won’t show to buyer unless seller reveals it.

Q Did Ian?

A Yes

[ This is technically inaccurate as they have not and can’t confirm it is Ian behind the account, none-the-less the so called computer forensics expert testifies to it ]

Q Did he provide phone, email, address, etc?

A Yes

Q When was account created?

A ~2016

Q Last seen?

A June 3, 2020

Q 39 Ads?

A yes

Q Trades?

A 3946

Q What is this?

A drivers license to open account

[Note that a drivers license is not proof that someone opened an account, a drivers license could be obtained via a database leak from the dark web, and then utilized to open the account, while Ian doesn’t appear to be disputing this it’s not as clear cut as the forensics “expert” is making it sound]

[They now admit evidence which is a list of ians advertisements on LocalBitcoin.com]

Q What is this?

A Customer information for user bitcoinbombshell

Q Is account?

A Renee Spinella

Q Are these all to sell Bitcoin?

A Yes

Q What is a wire?

A A transaction between two bank accounts

[They now present a terms of trade document on the screen, the evidence is all being displayed on large TV screens in the courtroom]

Q When does this come up?

A Pops up if a user clicks on an ad

Q Is the time a transaction takes a concern?

A Yes

– For Bitcoin no refund

– Take a pic of entire receipt

Q Why is this important?

A Confirms funds transferred to seller

Ian’s disclaimer on screen:

~”what you do with bitcoin is your business. Don’t tell me what you do. I reserve the right to refuse sale. You certify you are buying and receiving the Bitcoin.”

Q You reviewed each trade?

A Yes

Q Was the disclaimer in every trade?

A Yes

Terms of trade

Q Due to fraud I may ask for additional info

A Yes

“depending on history I may require more info… must right for bitcoin purchase from ftl_ian”

Q “Due to fraud I have had to tighten up security?”

A Yes

Q Why?

A To protect seller

Q This one is for a wire transfer?

A Yes

“Must match government ID”

Photo of government ID required with written note “I certify I am buying Bitcoin from church of invisible hand” on the receipt is required. User name and reference # on receipt + selfie holding slip is required.

[The defense has no objection to chat log localbitcoin.com, logs are from end of 2019 until 2021, chat logs show ian refused to not follow law when buyer wanted to skirt currency transaction reporting requirements]

[The logs show that ian or purported ian is telling the buyer to say the reason for the transaction if asked by a financial institution is to purchase rare coins]

In the chat log ian says to buyer:

“I can not be seen as avoiding a cash transaction report”

“make deposit, upload photos, and then mark complete”

Account partner: 101 local goods

[What is interesting to note here is that these other entities or individuals are what are called payment processors in the industry and are a completely normal part of conducting these sorts of transactions, there are contracts between entities like convenience stores for example to receive money for goods on behalf of other parties]

~“If having agent deposit on your behalf I need ID from both”

[A this point you see a Nigerian passport posted to the chat log and a “victims ID” Mary Hurd is posted too, this evidence was posted to the docket and evidenced Mary Hurd’s involvement in a scheme to defraud the Shire Free Church, this however isn’t presented or hasn’t been, and it may be due to the fact the evidence is hearsay, but the docket evidence shows Mary Hurd told prosecutors or an FBI agent that she didn’t know the fraudster yet wrote on a receipt when buying Bitcoin that she was buying Bitcoin for the fraudster by name, at a minimum her credibility is destroyed and likely why the prosecution dropped her as a witness yet continues to utilize the chat log as evidence here against Ian, the chat log is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159.218.1.pdf and

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159.218.0.pdf

The prosecutor said here that Mary Hurd’s only contacts related to these transactions were with “Arnold” and she does not know Chiedu, or the fraudster, yet bought bitcoin for him according the message communicated to Ian via the receipt. She did in fact know the fraudster Chiedu if you look carefully at the evidence posted in the chat log. ]

“I certify that I am buying Bitcoin from FTL_Ian and the Shire Free Church on behalf of [Chiedu, the actual fraudsters full name]” … and todays date and signature.

[Photo of the above is written on receipt with selfie posted to chat log]

Q Does he ask for reason for buying crypto?

A No

[The scammer is getting angry in chat log for Ian and the Shire Free Churches excessive Know Your Customer compliance policies, Ian repeatedly insists in the log that the scammer follow the rules]

Q Why is he doing this?

A To ensure he gets paid

[This is the most absurd answer. It’s obvious to anyone who knows anything about financial regulations that the reason he is doing this is to comply with the law that mandates you have a policy on know your customer assuming at least you are a regulated entity of which the church is NOT under the law meaning that ANY KYC is far in excess of what is required, but it’s actually over the top and not even the banks do this level of KYC]

[A dispute is opened by the scammer after the scammer violates FTL_Ian’s terms / the church’s terms and FTL_Ian continues to insist on following the rules]

“You have not provided the required receipt selfie”

[Scammer then threatened to call police on FTL_Ian. Ian then asks scammer to restart trade and fix issues and then will send bitcoin as was agreed to]

Q What is third party trade?

A Agent marry hurd, ftl_ian, and Nigerian national

[basically the forensics expert is saying a third party trade is where there exists an additional party to the transaction, you have the person depositing money into a bank account, and the person receiving the bitcoin is a different individual]

Prosecution

Q The premises of case is “no questions asked”. There was no due diligence on Mary Hurd. This was a red flag. Our whole overarching basis of the case is Ian Freeman engaged in money laundering.

Types of Evidence

– Testimony

– Exhibits

– Stipulations

He submitted a document to the court that he did not remember having any contact with Mary Hurd. Document indicates Ian to say rare coin / investment..

Q Is there any evidence that this was a transaction for rare coins?

A No

[This is blatantly false given that Bitcoin’s value is derived from it’s rarity and the name Bitcoin literally has the word coin in the name, but the government considers the word “coin” to be a legal definition and only ever mean US currency. If you claim a euro coin is a coin you’re somehow committing a crime. Obviously there are non-government coins in existence. Often valuable, often novelty coins, etc In fact my company sells something we refer to as a novelty token, and not a coin ONLY because the government uses this to persecute people, see https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/gnu-slash-linux-token-tpe-linuxcensored, basically we went in and made it obvious we were being censored as we can not utilize the term coin without the risk of the government using this against us under this absurd non-logic]

[Evidence of chats is suppose to show Ian never asked why customers were purchasing crypto as if it isn’t relatively obvious… 99.9% of purchasers are buying crypto as an “investment” whether or not freedom loving folks like that and he even had Marry Hurd write rare coin OR investment]

Q Is there any evidence of buyer making a donation?

A No

[This is also false, Google defines donation as “something that is given to a charity, especially a sum of money”, and the Church is a charity and the proceeds are that “something”]

[From all this presented so far we can gather that the government thinks that retired folks buying bitcoin with retirement funds is suspicious, though it’s not at all clear why this is suspicious, it’s as if old people aren’t interested in growing their wealth, which is obviously not true]

[Prosecutor evidences Ian verified phone #s]

[The forensics analyst is asked about using IP addresses evidence and it appears the prosecutor is trying to show or verify that that the account is controlled by Ian even though this can’t be proven. What is shown is a PUBLIC IP and the expert claims it’s a device IP which just isn’t the case. There is no link connecting Ian to the account conclusively.]

Q Anonymity is not illegal right?

A No

Q Private sale of material good you don’t have to explain your doing right?

A Correct

Q Bank didn’t stop that $750k transaction we talked about earlier right?

A I can’t speak to that

Q Nobody stopped that event right?

A Yea

Q Bank questioned and freeman questioned it too right?

A Yea

Q Ian somehow worked hand in hand with fraudsters right? Any indication he worked with scammer?

A No

Q It stopped on local bitcoin if suspicious right?

A Right

Q It would be crazy if a scammer didn’t want to remain anonymous right?

A Right

Q Did Ian give out spoof’d phone #?

A No

Q Did Ian give out fake name or address?

A No

Q If anybody wanted to go after him they could, right?

A Yes

Q So he wasn’t being secretive?

A Right

[This is important because in the opening statement the government claimed he was being secretive and their own witness is saying he was not secretive]

Q Is that normal for scammers?

A No

Q People want Bitcoin everywhere, right?

A Yea

Q Did Ian know any scammers?

A Nothing I did could make that link

Q Why is age important?

A Indicator of fraud can be age particularly with Bitcoin

We consider this to be red flag

[Wow- the prosecutors own witness testifies to the fact the government is expecting people to discriminate, likely illegally against old people, this conflict makes you a criminal whether you do or don’t comply with the governments interpretation of the regulations]

Q How many transactions did Ian do?

A Over 3,000

[note: it was ~3900, just shy of 4000!!!!]

Q 20 transactions seems like a small # out of over 3,000 transactions, right?

A Yea

Q Did you read Ian’s reviews? The feedback

A Yes

Q Good reviews?

A Yes, customers were satisfied

Q No scams or people being ripped off?

A Correct

Q Did Ian ever meet the Nigerian national?

A No

Q Did anyone follow up on the international scammers?

A Not to my knowledge

Q Why would someone document ID?

A Not a robot, a real person, and be able to dispute a transaction

[Aww this is a crazy answer, it’s obviously done for legal reasons, ie KYC]

Q It would be to protect against scams, right?

A Yea

[Then she admits its to stop scammers !!!! which is what KYC is for]

Q If government wanted to investigate they could because Ian had documented buyers, right?

A Yea

Q Did FBI ever go to Ian and ask for help?

A I’m not aware of that

[great answer, obviously they didn’t]

Q He had protocols to ID people, right?

A Yes

Q Did he try to corneal anything from the FBI?

A No

Q Before Bitcoin there were scammers, right?

A Yea

Q They used gift cards before bitcoin right?

A Yea

Q Nothing secretive about Ian’s bank accounts right?

A Yea

[Governments witness admits Ian didn’t commit a crime as the governments argument is or was he committed fraud against the banks, this part of the charges were dropped before trail]

Q When did bitcoin start?

A 2009

Q Did physical bitcoin ever exist?

A No

[Sort of right sort of wrong, but psychical coins existed after Bitcoin was invented, but more of a novelty item than actual Bitcoin even though they “held” Bitcoin]

Q Original value of Bitcoin was zero, right?

A Yea

Q People liked it because you didn’t have to tell anyone what you were buying, right?

A Yea

Q If you pay in cash for a car nothing is illegal about that right?

A Right

Q Freeman was concerned about impostors right?

A Yes

Q Is this normal for scammers?

A He wanted to make sure they had him

Q Scammers don’t try to protect people, right?

A No, not usually

Prosecutor counters cross examination

Q He is a money launder, not a scammer, right? That’s the government allegation, right?

A Yea

Q Ever Ask about source of funds in transactions we looked at?

A No

[umm 20 carefully selected transactions, but what about the 3880 transactions you DIDN’T look at????]

Q Are scammers hard to find?

A Often can be

Q Are these church entities the scammers?

A No

Q What point of bank account?

A To receive money

Defense responds:

Q banks didn’t ask where money cam from either?

A I couldn’t speak to that

[Obviously not, or if they did it didn’t stop them from doing business either]

Q Is it your experience good old money launders give their real info?

A Sometimes

[holly crap- sure, sometimes, but certainly that isn’t normal]

Q Is that the normal though?

A Yea, not the normal

[Government witness even admits it]

Q He’s flesh and blood, not a shell company, right?

A Yea

 

[ note: the below was added at ~9:30 eastern December 8th as I ran out of time to include it prior to a following day trial ]

Prosecutor

Theodore Valahakis

Works for: US department of treasury (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, FinCEN)

Works as: Compliance officer

Education: BA and JA School of law…. [missing full name of school]

Joined in 2009

Bank Secrecy Expert

Answers how to comply with banking laws

Could call or email

Then became compliance enforcement officer

Help with enforcement actions

Help banks to understand rules

Q What is bank secrecy act?

A Requires banks to file reports and report suspicious activity

It applies to financial institutions:

– MSBs or Money Service Businesses

– Casinos

– Hedge Funds

Money services business is based on the type of business that is conducted

– Cash checking

– Money transmission

– Prepaid access

– Postal service

Money transmitters are those who transmit funds by any means

Q How about exchanging Bitcoin?

A Yes because if you exchange for fiat you are a money transmitter

Q Exceptions exist?

A Yes

example: If you cash an employees paycheck once you are not a money transmitter

Depends on facts and circumstances

Q What makes you regulated?

A Regular transmission occurs

1-2 in a year wouldn’t constitute being a money transmitter

FinCEN offers a money service business home page

– It has faqs

– Rulings

– A helpline

Q Guidance on virtual currency?

A Yes, 2013 laid out compliance for users, businesses, etc

A user is someone who make it or spends it

Exchanges virtual currency for fiat is a money transmitter

Q Does size matter for being a money transmitter?

A No

Q Does it it matter if business describes itself as a money transmitter?

A No

Q Does guidance on kiosks exist?

A Yes

Those were in 2014 and just clarify virtual currency for real money makes you a money transmitter

Q Manor does not manor?

A No

Q Are there registration requirements?

A Yes, all must register within 180 days

The form has bank info, name

There is no fee to register

States have their own requirements

Q Registering with the state does not matter?

A Right

All are required to have an anti-money laundering program

1. Policy, procedures, internal controls

2. Compliance officer

3. Education and training

4. Independent review

1. Policy should include:

a. When suspicious what to do

b. Know your customer [aka example you could include an ID requirement, though KYC does not specify this]

c. When to close account

 

KYC means use of business and type of transactions policy to ask purpose of transmission

[note: the mere sale of crypto wouldn’t necessarily have a intended purpose, only transmission might say if you bought goods, odd for bitcoin sale]

Reporting requirements include those that do all cash transactions over $10k in one business day

Purpose is to help with investigations like who is on behalf of etc

[the guy got this wrong… the # was lowered to $8k recently, assuming this law actually applies which it does not in this unique case, sad that I know more than he does]

Suspicious Activity Report

– They believe possible suspicious transmission occurs

– Most common is called structuring, for example someone deposits $9,900 to avoid being reported

[note: later the prosecutor introduces evidence that actually shows Ian ensured that structuring did not occur]

– Breaking up to avoid currency transaction reports,

[ ie depositing $8,000, then $5,000, yea, people get charged with this all the time for merely going about their business and not actually breaking up anything just because it can appear that they did ]

– Lower income person who starts sending millions of dollars

– 40 boxes, and custom box exist

– Unregistered MSB is an example of the above

info collected for narrative for report

Q How do they collect it?

A Type of guidance on how to identify and report

– Faq

– How to complete SARs

– Webinars

Elder fraud guidance

– Elderly all of a sudden wants to transfer large sums

[ my dad just bought a house and he’s elderly.. I guess he’s a victim of fraud for taking out a lot of money ]

– Does not know what it is

– Direction or control of someone else

Q Purpose of suspicious activity report?

– Bank name

– Suspect info, ID, address, payment instrument

– Find patterns across financial institutions

[ take note that the church is not a financial institution as it DOES NOT transmit anything, not a money transmitter of any kind, important down the line, evidence on day 3 ]

Q Does FinCEN reach out to register?

A Yes

FinCEN sent email to entities indicating it was believed to be a money services business

Shire Cryptocoin FinCEN Letter is shown on screen

Sent via email

2013 guidance sent in 2018

“letter says it isn’t targeting any specific entity”

[ meaning it’s a general letter to lots of businesses]

Letter sent to Shire Cryptocoin

[ take note: no one knows who this is… but it isn’t Ian, it’s not any of the churches involved in the Crypto6s ]

Q What circumstances led to this letter being sent?

A Part of general program

Q Did anyone ever respond to letter?

A No

[ this is a holy crap because it means no kiosk ever responded to their letters as requested, remember this is the prosecution asking this, NOT the defense ]

Q Can you identify if a business registered?

A Yes

Certified letter show business never registered

[ Which one? Shire Cryptocoin? No such entity exists connected to the crypto6 ]

Q Never filed suspicious activity report?

A That would not be possible

[ I’d presume that to mean you can’t file if you aren’t registered ]

Defense cross examination

Q Via electronic delivery?

A Yes

Q Has no human name?

A Correct

Q Not directed to Ian Freeman?

A Correct

Q Who runs Shire Cryptocoin?

A I don’t know

Q Was this even read by Ian Freeman?

A I don’t know

Q All you can testify to is this is a common letter sent to people?

A Right

Q You don’t know if Ian Freeman ever received this letter?

A I do not know

Q On any of the addresses in email or FinCEN letter do you see Ian Freeman, Shire Free Church, or Shire Bitcoin?

A No

Q Shire Cryptocoin?

A No

Q You have no idea if Shire Cryptocoin has anything to do with Ian Freeman?

A I don’t

Q The purpose of this letter is to tell public what is legal not, right?

A Right

Q The law does not have Bitcoin included until 2021, right?

A Correct

It redefined Money Service Business to include real currency or anything that substitutes for it

[ this is important because they have charged Ian with a crime that didn’t exist until after he was arrested, in the United States this is unconstitutional, this is the definition of an ex post facto law, or a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences (or status) of actions that were committed, or relationships that existed, before the enactment of the law. Note: that at least it would if applied, but it doesn’t because it only applies to those doing what Ian did AFTER he was no longer able to do it any more due to his bail restrictions, and he didn’t ]

Q Never asked to search suspicious activity for Mary Hurd?

[Mary Hurd was a supposed victim of a scammer who we found out the prosecutors evidence actually revealed that she knowingly took part in the scamming and defrauding the shire free church and knew the scammer by his real name and then lied about it based on a receipt where she wrote she was buying bitcoin for said scammer using his legal name, and then lying to the FBI and saying she hadn’t heard the name of the scammer before, they dropped her as a witness as a result of this, but it appears the prosecutions claims can’t be used due to the FBI interview not being done under oath, so sadly the jury never gets to hear that these “victims” in at least some instances were in fact defrauding the shire free church

Evidence of the fraud against the shire free church is available from the prosecutors own submitted evidence which you can find here:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159.218.1.pdf

and here:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159/gov.uscourts.nhd.56159.218.0.pdf

]

A No

I did not search for any of the scammers

Q Don’t know if banks complied, right

A Right

[so they didn’t investigate the actual scammers and don’t know if even the banks were doing any KYC, yet Ian Freeman and the Shire Free Church’s policy was to always do KYC on new customers to the determent of the churches financial benefit]

Note: The day is over and the witness testimony continues on day 3

 

Protest Outside US District Court Ahead Of Trial

The first day of the Crypto6 trial (Dec 6th, 2022) went well for the Crypto6’s defense. More on that in a bit. There appeared to be about ~25 supporters in attendance although not everyone was in any one place all at once. Some were protesting outside, some were denied entry to the courthouse due to an attempt at suppressing support for the crypto6 through new ID and mask rules. 4+ people were denied access for having religious or health objections to the new mask mandate. 3+ people were explicitly denied entry for a newly created and enforced ID rule written in response to people Crypto6 supporters objecting to a not legally authorized demand for ID that existed prior to November. The paperwork was finally obtained evidencing this and is available from the Telegram and Matrix read-only update groups which can be joined via links at TheCrypto6.com

Many news organizations came out to report on the only jury trail to be held in the past 2+ years at US District Count in the District Of New Hampshire. The short list of reporting organizations that were in attendance included at least NBC, the Union Leader, the Sentinel, and an independent documentary crew.

One of the most interesting things I learned about the jury selection process at the federal level is that while it’s “open” to the public to attend the majority of the proceedings are secret. The judge started off with providing information on the process and there being juror questions. Potential jurors were then questioned, of which we learned nothing more than there name and what each potential juror looked like in ~2-3 hours of interviews. In the background all you could hear was some classical music playing over the loudspeaker.

The judge qualified 36 jurors and of those 15 were selected for jury duty with 4 alternatives selected.

The process gives the defense and prosecution an opportunity to ask the group of jurors questions. Some of these were quite interesting.

Except for at the end of the trail the prosecution generally goes first, as they have the burden of proof.

The prosecution utilized this time to ask these questions of the jurors or potential jurors:

How many don’t own a PC? Two responded that they didn’t.

How many don’t own a smart phone? One person responded that they didn’t (he did have a landline however).

How many don’t have an email address? One responded that they have no email address.

They also asked about social media to which nearly everyone had some form of social media.

A question on how many in the crowd were early adopters got a response that only 5 in the crowd would consider themselves early adopters. An early adopter is someone who seeks out the latest technology rather than waiting until it’s established and more widespread to pick it up.

Interestingly while most didn’t consider themselves early adopters about half considered themselves tech savvy and two indicated that they were uncomfortable with tech altogether.

Nearly everyone indicated that they had at least heard of crypto before, but just one indicated that they owned crypto. That juror was promptly dismissed.

Most of the crowd believed that the average age of a crypto user was under 30.

Only half of the crowd had heard of the Nigerian prince email scam and the same was true of the grandson in jail scam.

The general consensus of the jurors was that older people were more vulnerable to scams.

The defense utilized this time to ask the following questions:

What is the reason people have not bought crypto? Some of the reasons given by juror included:

– I work too hard to give my money away

– I don’t understand it

– It’s a pyramid scheme

– I prefer physical assets that have tangible value

– Scared of hackers

– Volatility

Many thought that people not understanding it made it good tool for scammers to take advantage of.

Many believed crypto to be what scammers use.

Of the juror or potential jurors 10 thought that crypto led to more scams.

One juror said in the early days of crypto it was not backed by government.

At least one juror felt he leaned toward crypto being “shady”.

I made as many statistical observations as I could. While not ideal this boiled down to the federal court utilizing a very secretive process by which to select jurors. While the jury selection process is open to the public the actual interview questions and responses are not. This leaves the public with nothing other than what might be available from statistical observations based on outwardly appearances. Thus you may get a feel for the potential juror makeup without any good idea if the process was actually fair or just.

– 22 out of 36 potential jurors had gray hair, no hair, or hair loss

– 10 or more of the 36 potential jurors had brought their own masks to court rather than utilize ones provided by the court at no charge

– 16 of the 36 potential jurors were women

– 100% of the potential jurors were white

– 12 of 36 juror wore glasses

Of the 36 potential jurors they concluded by selecting 15 with 4 being alternatives that can be utilized should people get sick or otherwise miss a day of jury duty.

At this point the judge adjourns the jury for lunch, but not before saying that the jurors will not be exiting from the front door of the building due to “a lot of activity”. This was code for Mr Bitcoin. Mr Bitcoin attended a protest outside the courthouse alongside many reporters and other peace loving activists who support Ian Freeman & the Crypto6.

Once the jurors are released for lunch a bit more back and forth occurs in the courtroom between the judge, defense lawyer, and prosecutor’s team of lawyers.

One issue that was brought up is that the prosecution wants to utilize a prior co-defendant Renee Spinella as a witness in the case. As she has taken a plea deal she could in theory be forced to testify. However there remains an issue because while she can’t be charged again at the federal level forcing her to testify could be self incriminating at the state level should one of any number of intertwining states wish to prosecute her. This is not considered an issue of double jeopardy, but what it does mean is she is likely able to take the 5th despite having taken a plea deal. The defense also revealed that she is considering withdrawing her plea. However, this is unlikely to actually be possible as the circumstances where this can be done are severely limited. If she was poorly advised there however may be grounds for withdrawal, but such withdrawal are rarely granted as the burden on the defendant of proving incompetence is high.

One of the most interesting things in the trial was that jurors were explicitly banned from tooting. Tooting is like Tweeting, but via a more decentralized or federated technology. While there is a standard protocol this generally means Mastodon. This may very well be the first time a federal court has brought up a decentralized or federated social networking platform.

Another interesting note is that the judge said that witnesses will not be wearing masks.

Prosecution

Ian ran a money transmitting business.

That business was a money laundering business.

The one goal to not know where the money came from.

He was involved in romance scams.

He would receive scam money and give Bitcoin in return.

He was intentionally disengaged to serve scammers.

It’s your business. Don’t tell me what you use the Bitcoin for.

No expert is needed to understand Bitcoin.

Selling Bitcoin is not illegal, but Ian’s selling of Bitcoin was illegal.

Bitcoin is pseudo anonymous.

There is no name or account info.

Nobody knows its yours unless you tell them.

It can’t be recalled.

These unique properties are desired by scammers.

Victims don’t know what Bitcoin is.

Ian’s business was involved in:

– Cash deposits

– Wire transfers

 

– Stacks of cash sent via the mail

Ian charged 10% and sometimes 20% fees!

Ian helped scammers remain anonymous.

There are laws to stop the very types of crimes Ian engaged in.

Businesses have to comply with rules to protect people. This primarily revolves around the bank secrecy act.

This includes:

– Registering with FinCIN

– Having an anti money laundering policy

– Filing suspicious activity reports with the government

He also had an obligation to stop suspicious activity.

– He did not register

– He did not do other things like file currency transaction reports

– Or file suspicious activity reports

He boasted he respected the scammers privacy.

Ian sold crypto via:

– Kiosks

– LocalBitcoins.com

– Telegram

His central basis for doing business was: what you do with your bitcoin is your business. Don’t tell me what you do with it.

Kiosk not registered

Completely anonymous

He advertised:

“You can get crypto online in various ways. The cheaper ones don’t respect your privacy.”

He’d say to employees:

– Big spenders

– Major wales

He had signs that said “Do not tell staff what you do with your coin. It’s your business to do what you want with it.”

This catered to scammers.

Ian proceeded to expand the business from kiosks to online crypto sales and hired employees.

This enabled him to reach people nationwide.

This was more complicated and he had to use banks to do it.

Banks follow rules.

They would frequently close Ian’s accounts.

At this point she admits Ian did KYC and said that to banks when he did disputes.

He directed people to tell banks deposits were:

– Church donations

– Purchases of virtual goods

– Rare coins

Then afterward he told people to write a different note on receipts about purchasing Bitcoin.

He would sometimes ask for a phone # to verify people knew what they were doing.

He would claim to be a victim to the banks when a recall occurred.

Ian said to contact him via Telegram and in PC he kept selfies of pics on his PC.

Victims never communicated with Ian.

He never asked too many questions.

We’re going to talk about one victim. A 76 year old victim. She sent 3 transactions totally $75,000 over 3 days. Ian charged a 10% fee.

Ian hired people to open banks accounts.

Ian opened bank accounts or had people open bank accounts in the name of churches. Church Of The Invisible Hand. The Shire Free Church. Crypto Church Of NH. Reformed Satanic Temple. Shire Peace Church.

Never told banks he opened accounts for Bitcoin.

He would tell banks he opened accounts for church outreach.

He never paid taxes.

– Conspiracy

– Tax evasion

– Money laundering of wire frauds

He shared 55 clients with Aria.

He made a sale of Bitcoin to an undercover FBI agent posing as a drug dealer.

In response to questions from the undercover FBI agent posing as a drug dealer asking about KYC Ian responded he disables all that.

The undercover agent went and bought crypto from one of Ian’s vending machines two weeks later and paid a 14% fee.

Ian “looked the other way”.

At this point the defense lawyer gets up and has the opportunity to make his own opening statement and responds to many of the claims of the prosecutor:

Can’t omit things.

(Ie meaning the government is lying)

Sisti says: “government made up stories”, “freemans not a scammer”

If freeman worked with scammers “place scammer on stand”

(note: there is no scammer on the prosecution’s witness list to base the argument of him working with scammers off)

[They] “investigated Ian for years”

[They] “made him out to be bad man”

Ian is most likely the least violent man in this courtroom.

Ian got money back from a scammer for a mother.

He helped a Texas investigator.

Church is real.

Church does real things.

Aided homeless in Keene.

Fed the homeless.

Helped with the courts.

Helped with community service.

“Setup orphanages in Uganda”

Lots of misconceptions going around.

Time to clear the air.

Freeman setup a mosque for the Keene’s Muslim community.

He helps local businesses accept Bitcoin.

He shows them how to do it for free!

Many businesses use his help.

Freeman is not secretive.

Photos have his name on them.

Record of transactions.

Warns people of scams.

Refuses to partake in scams.

He rejects deals.

He turns people away.

He works with law enforcement, on more than one occasion.

Money transmission came info effect post 2002.

Bitcoin did not exist in 2002.

Statute does not even mention Bitcoin.

Corrected only after arrest, and the law then only went into effect in Jan 2021.

Freeman is not in a business.

He’s not even transmitting anything.

Freeman relied on the law to protect himself.

Freeman sought a licensed attorney for legal opinion and relied upon that legal opinion:

The legal opinion said:

1. He was not operating a business

2. Church is not involved in exchange

3. Bitcoin is owned by church, not involved in moving other peoples money

No criminal intent whatsoever.

The banking commissioner of New Hampshire even testified that they are not money transmitters, but simply vending crypto.

Nefarious actors do not get:

– Drivers license photos

– Photos, selfies

All this was preserved for years.

What bank allowed $750,000 to be transferred by a 76 year old?

Freeman is not working hand in hand with scammers.

He warned people of scammers and they still would do transactions.

The undercover agent posing as a drug dealer is a sorry excuse to hang charges on Ian.

Ian refused to do business with the undercover agent.

Freeman told him no.

Why did the undercover agent need to go to the vending machine if Ian agreed to sell him crypto?

This was a “forced transaction”.

Told after the fact.

“I can not tell you you can use that”

What was he suppose to do? Post an armed guard in front of the vending machine?

Vending machines were operated for years at one location without problems. The owner at Murphy’s Taproom said there were zero complaints.

Murphy’s Taproom is open to the public, police, liquor commission, etc.

Remember what I said earlier. We are a “rule of law nation”.

It’s not a “good enough system” that we have.

You all agreed to follow the rules.

We need you now to watch and keep an open mind.

Burden of proof is on them, and it is a heavy one, “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Sisti asks jury to vote “not guilty”- they failed

That concludes day 1 of the Crypto6 trial.

For more details, pictures, videos, etc on the days events visit TheCrypto6.com and join the Matrix or Telegram read-only Crypto6 updates group. We have links to articles written by others, pictures, videos, and more.

Need a comment for a story your writing on the Crypto6?  Want to get in touch? Need copyright sign off for your paper? Contact chris at thinkpenguin com for footage, pictures, potential interviews with those involved or surrounding the Crypto6 and more.

FBI Goon Smashes Cameras During Crypto Six Raid

Christmas came early! Just days before the start of the Crypto Six trial, federal prosecutors have revealed they will be dropping the supermajority of counts in their ridiculous case against me. Gone are all twelve of the “wire fraud” charges, three “money laundering” charges, “conspiracy to commit bank fraud & wire fraud”, and most importantly the charge with the ten-year mandatory minimum sentence, the “kingpin” charge of “continuing financial crimes enterprise”. All gone!

If you’ve been paying attention to the case for the last twenty months, you may recall the big deal the prosecutors made to try to keep me in jail until trial, claiming I am a “sophisticated cyber criminal” and a “danger to the community”. Prior to the charges being dropped, my bail conditions had loosed to where I am no longer wearing a tracking anklet. Now that those charges are gone, when we recently asked to remove the government spyware from my computer and phone, the prosecutors had no objection. Apparently, I’m no longer the scary things they told the judge and press that I was.

The remaining charges that are slated for trial are:

1. Conspiracy to Operate Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business
2. Operation of Unlicensed Money Transmitting Business
3. Money Laundering
4. Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
5. Attempt to Evade or Defeat Tax (four counts for 2016-2019)

While this is assuredly good news, as it reduces the maximum time I could spend in prison from 420+ years to 70 years, it’s really sad news for my three friends who took plea deals on the “wire fraud” charges. Had they known the charge they pled to would eventually be dropped, they surely wouldn’t have taken the raw “deal”. Now they are saddled with felony convictions for the rest of their lives for something that sounds really bad. The reality is, the accusations were simply that they’d lied to a bank, and that it was not even to try to scam the bank out of money, but only to do things like keep an account open. However no one who checks their record is going to ask them for details. They’ll just see “wire fraud” and think they are dealing with a fraudster, when in fact no one was defrauded. None of the banks lost anything and no restitution was ordered during sentencing for any of the three. None of them committed fraud, but they took the plea likely out of fear – the reason most people take a plea – because the feds know how to scare people.

Don’t Take the Plea Deal Flyer

They stack a ton of charges against you, then threaten to stack even more if you don’t tap out. A few years of probation and a felony starts looking really good compared to thirty years in prison, so it’s understandable why people will take a plea, even though they didn’t actually commit the crime of which they are accused. The prosecutors love it as they rack up conviction after conviction, ruining innocent peoples’ lives and bolstering the prosecutors’ careers. Plus, they never have to bother preparing for and going to trial. It’s super easy for them and it almost always works.

For a long time, I have been an advocate of “Don’t Take the Plea Deal“. ESPECIALLY if you didn’t actually do anything wrong. It is certainly risky and scary to go up against the federal behemoth. They have unlimited resources to throw at destroying you. However, if you take the first plea, you will never even get to see what kind of case they have against you. It might be a really crappy case and they may have made critical errors. There’s also a good chance of a better plea offer coming later on, but if you take the first plea, you’ll never find out. Of course, you have to do what you feel is right for you, and I never blame anyone for taking a plea if they feel that is best.

However, long term, people taking plea deals just empowers the state. If more people stood up and demanded their right to a trial, even on things as simple as a speeding or parking ticket, the “justice” system would not be able to handle the case load and they would likely just drop charges all together.

While I am happy to see the bulk of the charges in my case go away, I’m sad for my friends who were intimidated into wrongful convictions for vicitmless “crimes” on charges that would likely have been dropped anyway. The Crypto Six trial begins with jury selection on Tuesday, Dec 6th at Federal Court Church in Concord, NH.  For more background on the case, visit TheCryptoSix.com.

Ian Freeman Gets His Freedom Back: Running GNU/Linux On His Laptop Again

Ian Freeman of the Crypto6 is once again free to utilize his choice of operating systems: GNU/Linux. Back in ~ May of 2021 the feds took away Ian’s freedom of choice in what software he could utilize despite never having been convicted of any crimes. A tactic they regularly utilize against their victims. The purported reason for the arrest this time around was over the bastardly crime of selling crypto. However, after a decade of being targeted by the feds and the feds targeting other free staters and leading liberty activists in New Hampshire it’s a bit hard to believe that it was anything other than a politically motivated attack on freedom in the free state. This is at least the 2nd raid of Free Talk Live’s studio in the past 5 years, and the third incident involving federal agents and Ian / 73-75 Leverett St since ~2012.

However this isn’t what this story is about. It’s about the federal government’s attack on all things freedom and that includes the use of free software. What is disturbing about this is that the state is utilizing bail restrictions to prevent people from utilizing free software and has been doing it since at least the 1990s. Unlike other cases I have not heard of anyone else being successful in getting this type of restriction lifted and that’s quite disturbing. It took Ian more than a year and a pricey lawyer to get a ruling to lift this unreasonable and burdensome restriction on his right to utilize the software of his choice.

The good news of course is that with the help of his lawyer he was able to get the judge to lift this bail restriction. The bad news is that it comes just a week before his trial is set to begin. Yes- that’s right. It took ~19 months not including the two months that Ian spent in a cage to get a ruling to restore his right to utilize free software. And that’s ~2 months under which he was illegally held based on a magistrates misunderstanding of the law.

You might think this story ends with an operating system, but it’s not so. Not only did this restriction exist, but he’s also been prohibited from utilizing other free software. There is also an explicit prohibition on his use of Telegram. Now there is an argument for the restriction on his use of Telegram. At least in theory the argument would go that Telegram was a tool utilized in the course of conducting some sort of criminal enterprise. The problem with this logic is of course that a phone was also utilized in the course of conducting whatever sort of criminal enterprise that the prosecution has imagined up. Yet- there is no restriction for the use of a telephone.

There are many other unreasonable restrictions and violations of justice that defendants not convicted of any crimes face when being pursued by authorities who more often than not have no real basis for the restrictions on an accused freedoms. Ian they claimed was a flight risk- yet had no basis other than unsubstantiated claims of wealth, of which the judge eventually ruled was not a basis for holding someone. In fact even mob bosses can’t be held without bail! Yet- nothing stopped the prosecutor from slandering Ian’s good name and calling him a “kingpin”. No penalty will emerge from such actions because prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement are generally immune.

What can we do to change this? Well, not much. Without moving for independence New Hampshire residents will always be under the thumb of federal agents looking to attack freedom in the state. Fortunately there has been a growing independence movement in the state. If you’ve not heard of it check out https://www.nhexit.us for more information on the independence movement.

Not yet in New Hampshire? Well, if you believe in joining with other like minded persons to achieve liberty in our lifetime you should join the migration of liberty-minded folk moving to New Hampshire. After a decade of work free staters have achieved almost ~100 liberty friendly reps. While it may be another 8-10 years at our current rate of increasing representation to achieve more significant victories your move could help increase the pace. Not to mention we do have some small victories !

In 2017 for instance free staters worked with state representatives to pass a bill protecting New Hampshire businesses dealing with cryptocurrencies from state regulators. The bill passed and the governor even signed it into into law. There have been many other small victories like this one, but as has been demonstrated by the arrest of the Crypto6~ more needs to be done to achieve real freedom in our lifetime. If you’re a liberty-minded person join us in New Hampshire and we can achieve real freedom together.

Thanks to the hard work of liberty superactivist Justin O’Donnell, “101 Reasons to Liberty Lives in NH” has been completely re-done and updated in written form. It’s now called “Live Free and Thrive: 101 Reasons Liberty Lives in New Hampshire, and So Should You!” You can download it here as a PDF, for free. It’s also available for Kindle and in paperback form.

The original list, created two decades ago, has long needed an update as there have been so many amazing successes since then thanks to the thousands of people who have moved here for the Free State Project and NH Freedom Migration.

The new list will also be made into a documentary film and if you’d like to contribute to its production, please click here.

NHexit.US

The NHexit.US blog has a detailed story looking at what happened to the 13 state representatives who voted for the NH Independence bill this year, CACR 32. How many of them were re-elected? Turns out, of those who ran again and made it to the general election, 100% of them were re-elected!

Despite the democrats trying to make secession an issue, and despite the fears of the state reps who were too cowardly to vote for the bill, we now know that being in favor of NH independence, or at least being in favor of letting the people vote on the question – which is all the bill would have done – is not a guaranteed end to a state rep’s career.

For a full breakdown of how the NH Independence reps fared in this year’s election, see the article here at NHexit.US.

11/15/22 Crypto6 Evidentiary Hearing

After almost 7 years of waiting we’ve finally got a trial date! So mark your calendar and put your employer on notice that you’ll need a few weeks off as there is finally a solid date for the trial: December 6th, 2022. Address: U.S. District Court, 55 Pleasant St, Concord, NH 03301. Time yet to be known. Bring a valid state issued ID (real ID and passport not required) to ensure entrance to court house, no cameras/phones.

Early 2013 interaction between Phil Christiana and free staters

For those who haven’t been paying attention and wondering what the Crypto6 case is all about here is a bit of the backstory. In March of 2021 56 FBI agents, half a dozen three letter agencies, and dozens of other law enforcement officials raided the Bitcoin Embassy,  the Shire Free Church, Free Talk Live’s studio, a half dozen homes of so-called co-conspirators among other locations over the bastardly crime of selling crypto.

Somewhat closer to reality the story actually dates back decades and surrounds a single FBI agent with a political grudge against libertarians, free staters, and the Free State Project’s libertarian migration to New Hampshire. To shorten the backstory a bit further after a decade of attempting to take Ian Freeman out and three FBI investigations later FBI agent Phil Christiana finally thinks he has a case he can make stick against his primary political opponent Ian Freeman. You see Ian Freeman is a significant figure in libertarian circles and was responsible for many early movers partaking in the Free State Project’s migration. Some would even credit him with the success of the Free State Project itself. Ian’s activism in New Hampshire dates back about ~16 years now and has been a thorn in the side of Phil Christiana and the federal government for nearly as long. With a majorly syndicated libertarian run radio show Ian has enabled public criticism of government, government agencies, and officials with a show called Free Talk Live broadcasting on about ~200 radio stations nationwide. During this time Ian & co-hosts have promoted the Free State Project and cryptocurrency as a path to peace and freedom. Something dirty agents just don’t like.

The Hearing

The most recent hearing was significant in deciding many issues. The hearing started with a ‘daubert motion’ which is a motion discussed outside the presence of a jury to exclude the testimony of expert witnesses that do not possess the requisite level of expertise or otherwise used questionable methods to obtain data. In this case one of the defendant’s objectives was to exclude an expert that headed the blockchain forensics unit of the FBI and claimed to be an expert on blockchain analysis.

The prosecution granted Ian Freeman’s lawyer Mark Sisti a pre-hearing interview with the prosecution’s blockchain expert and key witness in the case Erin Montgomery. In that interview it came to light that Erin Montgomery has never been qualified as an expert witness before any court. Mark Sisti proceeded to argue that blockchain analysis was not a scientifically validated process sufficient to pass muster at trial. While it has been utilized in other cases to obtain search warrants and the like the standards for use at trial are far greater. In order to utilize blockchain analysis at trial the tools and processes would need to be open to peer review and the results be duplicable by outside experts.

One question that the defenses lawyer raised was whether or not the prosecutors filings constituted a community of experts. For which the prosecutor responded that she was an expert on co-spend. Co-spend is the tracing of the flow of bitcoins via clustering by co-spending which looks at addresses that create a transaction controlled by a given wallet. Effectively the testimony would attempt to prove the different Bitcoin addresses were controlled by the same person or entity.

The defense further clarified that the problem with letting the witness on the stand to testify was that it would give an aura or the appearance that the witness was an expert. To which the judge said he was also not even sure the witness was an expert witness either. As such he was inclined to allow the witness to offer an opinion, but only for story telling sake.

The prosecution proceeded to clarify that it was more about co-spend, not her being an expert.

Mark, the defense lawyer, then got concerned about qualifying her as a witness if not an expert implying that there were different standards of evidence for witnesses than expert witnesses.

Erin Montgomery was then asked to take the stand and testify about her qualifications. She stated that she worked for the FBI in a supervisory role within the virtual asset unit providing expert support. Her expertise covered crypto and decentralized virtual assets. Her qualifications included a liberal arts and history degree and 15 years of service with the FBI. She worked for the FBI’s cyber division unit which was a unit that focused on financially motivated cyber crime.

What makes her qualified to speak as an expert witness included:

– Early on she educated herself using online forums

– As books became available she read up further on Bitcoin

In 2011 Erin Montgomery was one of two people who took “ownership” in the FBI’s first big push into cryptocurrency. From the beginning she was part of a criminal investigation unit that created the virtual asset unit.

She then proceeded to specialize in doing blockchain tracing using open source tools and later commercial tools. She obtained two certificates from a company called Chainalysis which produces a commercial blockchain tracing tool.

She eventually became the supervisor of strategic and tactical groups developing the FBI’s curriculum for blockchain analysis. Despite claiming to have trained hundreds even thousands of people at the FBI she revealed that there were actually only four employees in her unit.

The defendant’s lawyer further questioned the agents credibility pointing out that she had no college education in blockchain analysis from A&M or taken any courses on blockchain analysis. In fact her education pre-dates Bitcoin’s existence. He points out that she never testified as an expert in any courtroom. The Chainalysis tool relied upon was developed by a private company and unavailable for peer review. He asks what the training requirements were for her field. To which she responded that there were no training requirements. Rather the program was developed in house and not peer reviewed by any outside agency at all. There was no scientific basis either. However her work was at points double checked by team-mates.

When her work was questioned, she said that while the evidence was originally crafted by the way of a commercial tool she re-created her work utilizing open source software blockchain.info. Humorously this is not an open source program, but rather a website. Within the context of the questioning the lawyer was not asking about “open source tools”, but the ability of outsider expertise to analyze the source code. This so-called expert didn’t even understand the question let alone that the software she was referring was not open source, but rather merely a website open to the public.

When questioned about her colleague double checking her work she responded that errors had been found, but that she couldn’t remember if any errors were found in this particular case. As the testimony continued the blockchain expert gleaned at the prosecutor gesturing for confirmation of her testimony. A regular back and forth of this continued throughout the testimony. Upon follow up questioning by the prosecutor the witness reveals that it’s very easy to make mistakes. In giving an example of a mistake shes made before she humorously even made an unintentional error confusing Bitcoin addresses and amounts thereof.

The defense asks what makes you special, to which the expert witness responds that she doesn’t know that anything makes her special. This is an embarrassing blunder given she indicates that even the defense lawyer could reproduce her work using the same websites she utilized. Obviously- if anyone can do it then one is not an expert.

She testifies that co-spend can link different Bitcoin addresses to a single individual yet fails to grasp that multiple people can control a single private key. While it may generally be correct that one controls a wallet by way of a private key there is nothing that says more than one individual or entity can’t control a private key or wallet.

During the hearing the defense lawyer questions whether or not all work has been provided to the defense team. To which the judge is very concerned. He states he does not want a repeat of the ‘Enron situation’ which was a case where not all the evidence that the defense was entitled to was provided by the prosecution which is required by law for a fair trial to occur. Particularly important is evidence favorable to the defense. He concludes that not all evidence favorable to the defense appears to have been turned over based on the expert witnesses testimony.

The defense reveals that there will be a number of witnesses thus far unknown introduced. One piece of evidence introduced to the docket thus far was a legal opinion from a lawyer advising the Shire Free Church on how to operate and vend cryptocurrency without falling afoul of the registration requirements at the federal level and state level. The prosecutor previously attempted to have this letter excluded from trial by falsely claiming the letter was referencing state law only. While that effort may have failed it is now revealed that not only will the letter be introduced at trial, but so will the attorney that drafted it. Thus removing any question of its authenticity.

The defense will also subpoena New Hampshire’s banking commissioner of whom testified at a state house hearing. The hearing was focused on removing the authority of the banking department to regulate cryptocurrency businesses in New Hampshire. It had previously been granted this authority by accident and had never actually regulated cryptocurrency businesses in the state. The witness will testify to the fact New Hampshire did not regulate the very type of vending the Shire Free Church did. In fact, her example during the state house hearing was specific to the Shire Free Church’s operations and the bill proposed was in direct response to legislators and supporters wanting to protect the Shire Free Church and similarly operated vending operations in New Hampshire.

During the hearing it was also revealed that a key piece of evidence intended to prove a ‘knowingly’ aspect of one of the charges wasn’t directed at the Shire Free Church or Ian Freeman. Nor was this letter sent by certified mail or even the postal service. The letter was sent to numerous operators via email and resembled something akin to spam or a fraud.

One of the defenses arguments appears to be that the vending machines were open and notoriously operated for many years.

Judge’s Conclusion:

There will be no jury nullification argument allowed at trial. This however was never an aspect of the defenses argument, but rather created by the imagination of a prosecutor who is aware of Ian Freeman’s jury nullification outreach. That outreach pertains largely to state courthouses and it’s well known that the federal courts will not entertain such argumentation.

The following evidence will be permitted:

1. Owned and operated vending machines

2. NH stated the church need not be registered under state law

3. Attorney Seth Hipple’s testimony on legalities of vending

4. General intent vs specific intent, intent to cause a particular result is not a defense to federal law

Crimes with general intent involve knowingly committing a criminal act. Specific intent crimes involve knowingly committing the criminal act as well as an intent to cause a particular result by committing the act.

5. The non-expert witness / FBI agent testimony will be allowed, but will not be able to give an opinion that it was Ian Freeman’s wallet, but will allow that inference

It was also revealed that the trial will likely take about two weeks to conclude, and will start on December 6th. However while the trial will start immediately it is likely that the first day of the trial will likely primarily constitute jury selection.

Free Keene already published the damning video showing General Don Bolduc, the republican candidate for US senate in NH, lying to police to have Joa from “Breaking the Flaw” wrongfully arrested. The story and video have gone viral yet right wing publications have largely ignored the truth of the video that proves Joa never touched Bolduc. Meanwhile, Joa has filed complaints against Bolduc with Goffstown police, as Bolduc was the one who committed assault against Joa and then made false reports to police.

Bolduc has continued to lie, even after walking back his claim that he was assaulted.

Now, you can see this longer form video showing various scenes from outside the senate debate at St. Anselm College, including libertarians protesting Jeremy Kauffman being excluded from the debate, but mostly focusing on the entire arrest and subsequent release of Joa:

Should be an interesting case when it goes to trial. Joa’s arraignment is at Goffstown District Court at 8:15am on December 1st.

UPDATE: Joa has released his first-person, unedited video of the whole arrest scene.

NH Republican US Senate candidate General Don Bolduc was caught in another lie tonight. This time, claiming a libertarian activist threw a punch at him outside a debate at St Anselm College in Manchester, NH. Multiple mainstream media sites are touting the campaign’s claim that Bolduc dodged a punch from Joa of “Breaking the Flaw“. (FOX, NYPost, Breitbart, Washington Examiner)

The campaign and Bolduc himself, are lying. Joa never threw a punch nor did he even try to touch Bolduc. He did approach him and yell at him about being a warmonger, that’s it. Bolduc on the other hand immediately pointed Joa out to police, who then took him into custody as Bolduc yelled, “He hit me!” multiple times. The video clearly shows that it was in fact Bolduc who hit Joa, then feigning that he’d been hurt in the same arm with which he hit Joa. Bolduc’s supporters then roughed up Joa even further, but police didn’t arrest any of them.  Watch it for yourself:

Though Joa was arrested, he was only charged with “disorderly conduct” and “criminal trespass”. It’s noteworthy that despite Bolduc’s hollering, police did not charge Joa with assault or battery. Perhaps because they too witnessed the incident and know the truth – Bolduc lied.

There is a lot more video from this event, but I wanted to get this part out as soon as possible. Stay tuned to Free Keene for more coverage.

The New Hampshire Independence PAC helped organize a gathering of about 50 people at the Wearehouse last week and featured networking, vendors, as well as multiple speeches from NHIPAC’s Matt Sabourin, Foundation for NH Independence’s Alu Axelman, author Jordan Cannon, Benjamin Shaffer from Goldback, Club 75 Alliance’s Stephen Villee, The John Birch Society’s Matt Rhodes, Jack Shimek of the Pine Tree Radio Society, state rep candidate Jason Gerhard, and Wearehouse founder Brian Becker. This video features all the speeches from the event:

Joa from “Breaking the Flaw” was in Concord last week with me, Bonnie, and Footloose and we went to the state house with cameras rolling. We encountered a rude woman in the Governor’s office, a security agent leveled a false threat against Coconut the dog, and we had a lengthy conversation with a state rep on various issues.  Here’s the video:

Arrested for sitting peacefully at an Executive Council meeting in 2021, Frank “Footloose” Staples was back in court Friday for a trial scheduling conference on multiple “disorderly conduct” charges. As previously reported, things are always interesting when Footloose is in court. Here is the full video of the hearing in Concord District Court:

First Amendment Auditor “Press NH Now” aka Marc Manchon was arrested last year in Charlestown, NH as he was live streaming video in the police department. He was charged with “disorderly conduct”, the police’s favorite catch-all charge for people they don’t like, and “obstructing government administration”, because of the alleged actions of his viewers, which were clearly free speech. Hence, after a two hour trial he was found “not guilty” on both counts.  Here’s the full trial video:

Manchon had come to Charlestown to pick up a freedom of information request and when he interacted with the police department’s dispatcher, she refused to tell him her name. Manchon suggested people could try to find out her name, and calls began coming in to dispatch from alleged viewers that were trying to get the tax-feeding woman, Sirena Reliham, to simply identify herself, which all government bureaucrats are supposedly required to do by Article 8 of the NH Constitution. When police chief Patrick Connors arrived, rather than acknowledging his employee was out-of-line by keeping her identity a secret, he doubled down and arrested Manchon because people were calling their publicly-listed department number and asking questions, or sharing how they felt about the corruption in the Charlestown police.

“Press NH Now” Supporters in Claremont after trial.

Basically, if the government thugs don’t like why people are calling them, they will call it a crime and make arrests. Thankfully, the robed man in this case, judge Jack Yazinski, despite his clear desire to protect his buddies from accountability, did issue a “not guilty” verdict on both counts, as obviously recording video in a public place and calling a public phone number to speak with so-called “public servants” is not a crime. However, he did take the opportunity to scold Manchon prior to issuing the verdict, telling him that he was “rude and disrespectful” to the bureaucrats while expecting they be respectful to him, and that “the street does go two ways”. Yazinski is wrong – respect is earned. No bureaucrat is deserving of respect simply because they have a badge, fancy hat, or uniform. Further, Ms Reliham didn’t show Manchon the simple respect of giving her name when asked and the entire government system regularly violates people’s rights, throwing innocent people into handcuffs and destroying peaceful people’s lives. They do not respect us. They rule us, while laughably calling themselves “servants”.

Kudos to Manchon for refusing to take a plea deal and going to trial. His activism is exemplary and you can follow his channel here. For full video background on the Charlestown situation, see his playlist here.

Moving the New Hampshire renaissance forward: Should we do something Medici Florence did?
Image: Petar Miloševi? Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

Most New Hampshire independence activists are libertarians, and most seem to favor adopting a neutral foreign policy similar to that of 20th Century Switzerland. What is something we can do *now* to create more buzz and pull the state in that direction? By “we,” in this context I don’t mean the unwieldy NH government. Rather, the question is “what is something just a dozen or so New Hampshire activists could do to enhance the prospect of eventual neutrality? How do we immediately start “acting like a nation-state?” And what is within our power along these lines?

Here’s the best thing I could think of this week, based on historical precedent. Around the year 1500, one tiny nation led Europe out of the Dark Ages with a scientific and cultural Renaissance that shook the globe: It was the city-state of Florence in Italy. But as the arts and sciences leapt forward over the following centuries…politics in the West “advanced” much more slowly. You could argue that, politically, humanity is still almost in the Dark Ages. Sometimes civic transparency or liberty moves forward, sometimes backward…but things are not obviously better for liberty than they were a century ago.

As in the 1500 era, one tiny state has stepped forward to try and change this and create a renaissance. But this time it is a civic renaissance which we hope will compliment and enhance the world’s art and tech advances. Through its existing, relatively inclusive system…New Hampshire has become one of the freest places in the world and pro-liberty activists from around the planet have already migrated here by thousands. Meanwhile, the state has reduced its budgets in a time of double-digit inflation and become (or at least remained) the safest and most prosperous place in America. Next, liberty activists envision a gradual (sometimes interrupted) trend toward transparency, lower taxes and slow decentralization of power in the New Hampshire governing system. That is our careful renaissance.

During the 16th Century, Medici rulers in Florence invited governments from as far away as India to join in a great celebration of *their* Renaissance. What if we were to do something similar for *ours?* The Medici showcased the spectacular architecture and inventions they had commissioned, but what do we have to showcase? The answer is probably “Porcupine Festival with bus tours.”

PorcFest is an annual camping event which offers a perfect view of New Hampshire’s comely White Mountains but also the option of staying in motels. It’s usually sold out, and attendance tends to be around 3,000. Sometimes called “the libertarian Burning Man,” PorcFest showcases freedom itself: In contrast with the Nevada festival, government police are almost never present, drugs, guns and illegal commerce are welcome, assault rifles openly displayed. Depending on the year you can usually find devout Muslims and Israeli expats, Satanists and Christian Evangelicals, Ukrainians and Russians…all attending contentedly side by side. Housewives deliver unlicensed haircuts and live-stream the crime; children sell alcohol, illegal gambling tables spring up seemingly at random, and (late bloomer of the 20-year-old event) safely-practiced prostitution is reportedly easing its way into the mix.

Like the Woodstock festival of 1969, PorcFest has a ridiculously low incidence of harmful crime. Surely I’m missing something, but the worst event I can think of was a drunk driver who hurt no one and quickly generated a successful response from private security and our media outlets.

Forty-two percent of New Hampshirites favor a referendum on leaving the Union, according to SurveyUSA’s poll in mid-2022. And a Estonian-style “declaration of independence” went before the full NH State House the same year. But at PorcFest the numbers are much higher than 42 percent; the event usually includes a secession conference with regular appearances and visits by independence leaders from across the continent.

What if, like old Florence, we were to boost our status by sending PorcFest-secession-conference invitations to every national government in the world? Of course, attendees could also enjoy the weeklong event and join bus tours to other parts of the state.

The mere act of evenhandedly sending these invitations would be a tentative deed of neutrality. It would mean reaching out to Iran, North Korea and the Taliban (much as Ron Paul envisioned) while also requesting the presence of U.S. allies. It would be a chance for estranged nations to interact with these United States in a different way from “John Bolton.” It might “be the change we want to see in the world,” altering the current tone of international relations a bit with its re-introduction of Swiss-style neutrality. Unlike the Medici in Florence, we Ron Paul types don’t fully govern New Hampshire. But we do constitute a powerful faction here, and if the trend continues….we will eventually be the government here. Like the Medici before they fully achieved power in Florence, New Hampshire independence activists and libertarians may be group of people you want to know if you’re a foreign diplomat.

My brainstorm would be that for PorcFest 2023 we could email every national government in the world with such an invitation. For redundancy we would want to aim the invite at two different email addresses for each nation, and we would need to define what constitutes a national government. My tentative suggestion would be to include any national government that currently is recognized as such by at least one “UN member state.” For example this would include Kosovo in former Yugoslavia (U.S.-recognized but controversial) and Donetsk near the Russia-Ukraine border (Russia-recognized but also controversial). The list probably would not currently include ISIS diplomats, since it appears the group is not recognized by any UN member state. It would presumably include them in the future if that changes, and in the unlikely event they actually made it to New Hampshire we would have our chance to raise concerns about their behavior and show them a different path.

Although it would be tempting to send invitations in the native language of each recipient, this probably could not be done for all nations at this early stage. All the invitations would probably need to go out in English so that each nation is treated as equally as possible.

Disadvantages of this “invitation plan.”

1) There’s no way to guarantee the good behavior of any visitor to PorcFest. If we were to invite someone and they did something bad while in the U.S., that could be used as an excuse to harm NH liberty. Or there could be Washington-backed trickery.
2) Beijing, if it paid attention at all, would view this obviously neutral act as a provocation. Taiwan is recognized by some UN member states and would, like the CCP, need to be invited. Beijing hates anything that looks like recognizing Taiwan. But ultimately that is on Beijing. The Swiss did things that Germany viewed as provocations in 1940, but Switzerland needed to do them to remain neutral. Beijing could alternately see this invitation as an opportunity to peaceably tweak Washington’s nose. The neutrality of the porcupine has charms to match its quills.
3) The invitations might all be ignored; perhaps we are not big enough yet.
4) We’re diplomatic beginners and would make diplomatic mistakes. But that very process should make us better prepared for independence. Any Slovenian will probably tell you how important that is and how much “not being ready” cost them in ’91.
5) D.C. would perhaps try to block some nations from sending representatives…but this is likely more of an advantage than a problem. When D.C. uses its power, it usually gets weaker…and we get the publicity we seek. The lapdog presstitutes can be relied on to whine that we are being too evenhanded with some cleric at Tehran. Blocked passports might still let us have a publicity stunt on the Canadian border or in international waters…”North Korean diplomat meets U.S. dissidents off coast of restless New England province.”
6) As I understand it: During the War of 1812, New England representatives pushed for independence and met with the otherwise hostile British government. This perceived “separate peace” approach was considered backstabbing by some and is thought to have contributed to the demise of the Federalist faction in America. The groups which replaced it were arguably more authoritarian. By implementing the invitation plan….would we be making the same “mistake” in the same place?
7) Some effort might be required to determine whether outreach of this type is lawful. It seems unlikely that there is a law against individuals openly communicating with a foreign government, but if there is…it would be an opportunity for civil disobedience in front of a Federal compound. It would create both dangers and benefits which would have to be weighed before deciding what to do.
8) We’d need to invite U.S. diplomats, which would give them an excuse to legitimately be there. But D.C. is probably there anyway.

At present the main obstacle to carrying out the invitation plan is a logistical one. I don’t see myself being able to send out 500-odd invitations and perform follow-up activities by myself. Probably it would require about five of us to get started. So: I’m requesting four volunteers…regardless of your location. If they are forthcoming before November 1, 2022 (and there are no compelling arguments against this plan) we can start moving forward. If sufficient volunteers fail to materialize, that means this scheme is premature or flawed in some way. It would probably go back-burner for for a while. If you’d like to participate, respond in the comments section below…here at FreeKeene.com. No registration is required.

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com

Listening to a Marcus Ruis Evans Calexit discussion gave me an idea. If you don’t like the idea (and in some ways I don’t)…it may give you a better idea. Spell it out! Anyway, Evans was talking about how California was pursing its own foreign policy in some ways.

What if , instead of creating a bill that tries to make NH independent across the board…we had legislation that built just one piece of independence infrastructure? For example… what if NH created its own (unpaid) ambassador to the U.N.? This could be an elected statewide position. Historically, NH governors have sometimes acted to undermine Washington’s authority (Lynch vs. Real ID, Sununu vs. Fed gun laws). So it’s not wildly speculative to imagine an NH ambassador articulating some independent foreign policy or questioning UN/US actions at NYC. They might be blown off by the UN establishment, but probably some nations get tired of the answers they receive from D.C.’s UN ambassador. They might like the chance to approach a different UN ambassador from America. This would undermine D.C’s bloodthirsty authority. It might also be an opportunity for NH to take a foreign policy line which makes it less hated by the world than Washington is. There is an historical precedent there too…in 1999 Montenegro (while still part of Yugoslavia) was able to use its dissenting foreign policy and independence drive for the purpose of pressuring D.C. not to bomb it. D.C. was bombing neighboring Serbia at the time and did bomb the Montenegrins, but it bought the Yugo-province good press and may have saved some lives.

There is a problem that some nations have when they are first created… “para-statism.” They become a para-state…independent sort of but not recognized by the UN or a sufficient number of other nations. Examples include Kosovo or (as of September 2022) parts of eastern Ukraine. Having our own UN ambassador earlier than usual might help head off this problem. Would she also perhaps be the only elected ambassador there…and would this perhaps draw positive attention to her?

One downside here is that the actions of such an ambassador now could taint NH efforts at neutrality later. This wouldn’t be a person like you and me. At first it would likely be more of a Chris Sununu or John Lynch…in other words a politician too close to Washington. But creating this position would probably make NH more of a nation than she is today and making it an elected position should further disperse power at Concord.

The point here is not so much to push this specific idea but rather the idea of legislation which would give us some trapping or capability which is associated with independence. As with all legislation, this should be done in some way that does not cost taxpayers anything.

What are other options along these lines? What else does Switzerland or Costa Rica have which we lack?

How about our own official currency? Our own one-woman state department? Our own Herbert Hoover 1915? Hoover used his official neutral status to coordinate Belgium relief during the German occupation. What if we had our own Raoul Wallenberg type position? A Swedish businessman/diplomat…Wallenberg toured Nazi-controlled areas with Berlin’s agreement and also was able to save lives.

These are the only liberty-friendly options I can think of. What are other things people think we need but which we would lose by leaving the empire? If legislators refused to create such a position… is there some smaller NH entity or faction which might? How about an NH GOP representative to the UN? Or an NHLA ambassador there?

Dave Ridley
NHexit.com

….but he still beats the independence-friendly candidate at Winchester.

Video:  https://odysee.com/@RidleyReport:b/3400.11d:c

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This weekend, on 9/11, the Libertarian Party of New Hampshire organized a rally in front of the State House in Concord, to support the “Defend the Guard” legislation. Defend the Guard, if passed, would prohibit New Hampshire’s National Guard from being deployed to active combat without a formal declaration of war by Congress.

Multiple people spoke at the rally, which was attended by over 40 people, including veterans Derek Proulx, Ben Weir and Justin O’Donnell. Plus, Foundation for NH Independence President Alu Axelman, Naturalist Capitalist host Reed Coverdale, and LPNH candidate for US Senate Jeremy Kauffman also spoke.  Here are all their speeches:

NRA’s Rating for NH Senate District 10 Candidates

I’m happy to announce that in my campaign running as a republican for NH Senate District 10, I have received the top rating of “A” from both the New Hampshire Firearms Coalition and the NRA, having bested my republican primary opponent, Sly Karasinski, who only scored a “B” from both organizations.  The democrats in the race did much worse.  The NRA’s rating includes the letter “Q”, and the NHFC’s rating includes the letter “S”, both of which mean that all they have to go on is my responses to their questionnaires, as I have no voting record, having not yet held office.

In addition to my top ratings from the gun rights groups, I also received the endorsement from the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, which sends questionnaires out to all candidates as well as scoring existing state reps and senators on whether or not they vote for liberty. They do great work.

Finally, I received 85 out of 100 from Granite State Taxpayers. My opponents did not bother to respond to their survey. The 85 is due to two “missed” questions, neither of which had to do with taxes. One was, “Will you support limiting voting to persons who have been New Hampshire residents for at least 30 days?” – I said “no”. The other was, “Will you oppose casino gambling?”, to which I said “no”. I do oppose gambling monopolies, but as a supporter of freedom, I think gambling should be legal, untaxed, and unregulated, just like every business should be. Neither issue I “missed” on GST’s questionnaire has anything to do with taxes, so I’m not sure why GST was asking about them. Here is a link to their full database showing all candidates’ responses.

New Hampshire Firearms Coalition’s Ratings for NH Senate District 10

If you’d like more information about me and my pro-freedom positions on the issues, you can visit my official campaign page here and also my Citizens Count NH page has many issues where I was able to submit custom responses.  Here’s more from Vote Smart’s Political Courage Test. Finally, here is a link to my Ballotpedia profile.

This year’s race for District 10 is wide-open as the current senator, democrat Jay Kahn, is not running for re-election.  The newly re-mapped NH Senate District 10 includes Alstead, Chesterfield, Dublin, Hancock, Harrisville, Keene, Marlborough, Nelson, Peterborough, Roxbury, Sullivan, Surry, Swanzey, Walpole, and Westmoreland. If you are in those towns and are an undeclared voter or a registered republican, you can vote for me on September 13th at the primary election. You can also register at the polls the same day, if you are not yet registered to vote. Undeclared voters can declare as republican, receive the republican ballot, then undeclare again before you leave the polls.