Popular YouTube First Amendment Auditor, “Press NH Now” aka Marc Manchon has moved to Keene and has already made an impact on the streets of Keene, catching KPD officer Michael O’Donnell with a bait bottle of non-alcoholic beer:

O’Donnell approaches Manchon in a apartment building parking lot and seizes his beer, then after Manchon refuses to show ID, O’Donnell puts him in cuffs. All the while, Manchon is explaining to O’Donnell that he’s going to have to let him go, pointing out O’Donnell should have conducted his investigation of the beer prior to cuffing Manchon. Once he does look at the bottle, O’Donnell looks embarrassed as he uncuffs Manchon and lets him go.

The whole incident reminded me of the Keene City Council Drinking Game over a decade ago, where activists were wrongfully arrested over fake beers. They dropped my charges in that case a year later, just prior to trial, because they knew it was an illegal arrest.

The City Council Drinking Game was a protest of Keene’s “open container” law that we won in two ways – first them dropping the charges. Second, subsequent iterations of the City Council Drinking Game went unmolested, including one that happened at the next Council meeting after the arrests.

Despite having backed down on enforcement within the Council chambers, Press NH Now’s video shows the enforcement of this victimless “crime” of “open container” continues unabated on the streets. Thank you to Press NH Now for his service to police accountability.

New Hampshire’s one-man independent video journalist, Dave Ridley, is back producing regular content for his “Ridley Report“! After YouTube demonetized his channel, Ridley abandoned it in order to protect it from being deleted due to YouTube’s new habit of issuing “strikes” against politically unpopular channels, ultimately resulting in their termination. However, he was disappointed in the other competing services to YouTube and their comparative lack of viewers.

However, recently, fans and sponsors encouraged Ridley to get back to regular production and he’s stepping up, with new videos being recorded and released as I write this. Welcome back Ridley! You can follow his new channel on Odysee and Bitchute.

Here’s his latest “ambush” video where he confronts some surprisingly open and accountable Keene Library “trustees”:

Keene activists are ready for a new wave of activism. Riley Blake, a new mover and Free Talk Live host, is hosting weekly 420 meet ups in downtown Keene. Press NH Now, a police accountability activist recently moved to Keene. Most recently, I took a parking ticket to court.

In this video you’ll see the whole process of how to do it yourself. I’ll explain it here, although this is not legal advice as i am not an attorney. First, you have to contest the ticket which is done at City Hall. Bring your ticket and your ID and registration if applicable. Then you’ll get served a court date. That does mean a psychopath with a shiny badge and a gun will likely come visit your home to give you the ticket so make sure you film your encounter and warn any roommates about what you’re doing. Then, you show up to the court date they give you. You don’t need to hire a lawyer for this and they won’t give you a public defender for a fifteen dollar ticket. You could tell the judge you don’t understand the nature or cause of the charge so you cannot plea guilty. You can use that as an opportunity to ask him questions about why you’re there that day. I asked the judge in my case if I am entitled to a fair trial. He said yes. I asked him if I could get a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest. He didn’t answer my question. He lied and said he couldn’t answer that yes-or-no question because he’d have to know what the conflict of interest would be. That’s non-responsive but I didn’t object since I didn’t want to piss him off that early. The obvious answer is that it wouldn’t be a fair trial if there was a conflict of interest in the case. Next, I asked the judge who he represents. He lied and said he doesn’t represent anyone. That stumped me because I knew the judge could say whatever he wanted but I hadn’t expected a human being to stand in front of me and say he represents no one, not even himself. That doesn’t even make sense but we are in legal land when we are in court. So up is down and down is up as Marc Stevens would say. I dropped my questioning and he asked if I would like to plea and I still said no. He gave me a trial date in July.

The prosecution didn’t end up giving me discovery until the day before trial. So the day before trial I went to the court house and the police station to file a Motion to Dismiss with the judge. You have to go to the police station and file it there to because they give it to the prosecution and you must notify them as well. The day of the trial, the judge granted a continuance so I would have more time but didn’t grant my motion to dismiss. So a trial was rescheduled for two weeks later. I was actually happy it didn’t get dropped because I wanted to cross examine Jane McDermott, the old lady thug who wrote the ticket and left it on the car I was using. The day of trial I was able to do that. I got to ask her a lot of fun questions including how much she gets paid to be at court. She was on her day off but being paid twenty-five dollars an hour to be there. So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Writing parking tickets is objectively not just something the City of Keene needs to do in order to maintain parking spaces. If it was, they wouldn’t spend all of this money paying the parking enforcer, the prosecutor and the judge to be in court in order to get fifteen dollars out of me. I believe the real reason is to create an atmosphere of fear and make sure people stay obedient. No private company maintaining these parking spaces would waste so much money. But they don’t care, it’s your tax dollars they’re wasting so why be responsible with it? They’ll get more out of you, right? If you don’t pay them they’ll come to your house and shoot your dog and bring you to prison.

I won the case because when Jason Short, the prosecutor, rested his case I motioned to dismiss on the basis that he never showed any evidence that I was the one who had been operating the vehicle or that I owned the car, since it’s registered under a church for which I am a minister. But even if you try this yourself and your car is registered under your name, if the prosecution rests without showing any evidence that you were the one operating the vehicle or that the meter was actually out of time, you could motion to dismiss. The judge may just not like you and deny your motion. He may order you to pay the fifteen dollars. If you really want to be a stellar activist you can tell him you’re not going to pay the fine. He will either make you do community service or put you in jail for one day. But, (and this is especially true if you are able to film the trial,) they don’t want to be seen throwing people in jail over fifteen dollars. If enough people contest their tickets, they will be so backed up there’s no way they would be able to continue this racket.

Please enjoy the video of the whole process. It’s fun to laugh at how ridiculous of a situation we are in while in court trying not to be harmed by these freaks who believe they are superhuman. They wear suits, badges and robes. They speak in ritualistic patterns. They will reprimand you for getting frustrated with someone who is lying under oath about you. They pretend it’s fair that all of them are on the same team against you. But that’s the “fair and just” legal system we are forced to not feel contempt for!

The saga of the State Thugs vs the Peaceful Noone Family continues with this sentencing hearing after Shalon Noone was found guilty of the bullshit “Child Endangerment” charge earlier this Summer. If you missed the trial video, see it here.

Since it was charged as a “Class A” misdemeanor, Shalon is appealing the charge “de novo”, which means “from the beginning”. That means she’ll get a whole new trial in “superior court” in front of a jury this time. So, this sentencing hearing will not really mean anything unless she decides to not move forward with the appeal.

Here’s the full sentencing video from our Odysee channel:

The robed man, Judge Guptill sentenced her to 45 days in jail, all suspended on the condition of good behavior for a year.

Stay tuned here to Free Keene for the latest.

Several libertarian activists gathered in Manchester recently for a “gun buyback” event where they attempted to persuade Manchester police to trade their guns for $25 gift cards. Organizers and attendees said they wanted to bring attention to police violence and “qualified immunity” which protects officers from responsibility for their actions. Kudos to Justin O’Donnell for being there and getting video:

My good friend and the High Priestess of the Reformed Satanic Church of Keene, Aria DiMezzo, is through her first month of her 18 month federal prison sentence for the victimless “crime” of selling bitcoin without a government permission slip. You can find out how to write her letters, send her books, or money for her commissary on her blog post here. This week, she sent me the following blog from the Devens, MA federal prison camp, as originally posted to her website, AriaDiMezzo.com:

No one dislikes the government more than I do (although some may equal my disgust with the institution), but even so it would be silly and unfair to accuse the BOP (Bureau of Prisons) of being anti-trans, in exactly the same way that it would be absurd to accuse the rain of malice because it erodes the hills. The water does not hold enmity toward the dirt; the rain only does what it does, and there are simply effects to that. In actuality, the treatment of the BOP in regard to trans people is both a stark contrast and an alarming analog to the conversion therapy camps that were more common in the 90s; by holding none of the enmity and sharing none of the intentions of the “pray the gay away” camps, the BOP is more subtle in its erasure of trans identity, but this doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Just as the rain does not try to destroy the hillside, and is merely a result of weather patterns much greater in scope than a mound of dirt, so is the assault on transgener identity only an effect of a larger phenomenon: a widespread tendency to glance at a newborn’s genitals and map out large sections of their life for them, and then becoming irate and hostile at the suggest that an infant’s gentials may not be the best way of grouping adults into relationships, friend circles, or prisons.

It is simple, when a patient complains of a cough, for a doctor to prescribe some cough syrup, but nearly no doctor would do this, because it is myopic and narrow to treat a sympton rather than the underlying illness that causes the symptom. By treating only the cough, a doctor could easily miss the pneumonia, lung cancer, or asthma that is causing the patient to cough. Similarly, there is a Buddhist story where the Buddha is traveling with students when one of them is shot by an arrow, and begs the Buddha to pursue the attacker, so they might be held to account. The Enlightened One responds that he could do that, or he could remove the arrow and dress the wound, but he obviously could not do both. Similarly, shaking our fists angrily at the torrents or clouds that produce them has a tremendous opportunity cost and is a waste of emotional energy; instead, we could devote our time and efforts to halting the erosion, and then preventing it from recurring.

The issue at hand is not that the BOP maliciously denies transgender healthcare, because it doesn’t; the BOP fails to provide adequate care to transgender inmates, but it is because the society behind the prison industrial complex routinely fails the transgender population, largely due to apathy, although there is occasionally malice shown to these people who declare themselves to fall into the cracks of the social construct of gender, which, in the estimation of the bigoted, is sufficient for “everyone else,” and thus must work for all. It is the equivalent of telling a person who is cold to remove their coat because the speaker isn’t chilly, so how could anyone else be?

Even under the best of circumstances, being transgender is difficult. Transgender people already know in their hearts that they will never be indistinguishable from a cisgender person, but there are plenty of people who enjoy reminding trans people of that anyway, to say nothing of the myriad of minor, incidental, and accidental ways in which this is made clear to a trans person. No one ever said, “I’m going to make my life easier by dressing as the opposite sex,” because, despite bigoted claims to the contrary, such a monumental step serves only to make one’s life more challenging, at least for the foreseeable future, when it is less readily apparent that a person is trans at all.

Everyone has struggles, though, and it would be inaccurate to suggest that this is unique to trans people, or that the hardships of a trans person are unduly difficult. Rather than somehow being “worse” than the challenges other people faced, the tragedy of the trans plight lies in how utterly and easily preventable–and harmlessly so!–the difficulties are. In prison or larger society, it brings no risk or hurdles to anyone else for a person of any characteristics to present themselves as they need to in order to look in a mirror and be reasonably happy with the reflection.

The existence of transgender people, without a doubt, creates challenges for society that it is not equipped to handle, but putting trans women into a men’s prison and trans men into a women’s prison should be regarded at least as catastrophic to the involved people as placing trans men into a men’s prison and trans women into a women’s prison is regarded by those who have run out of real problems to deal with and so instead spend their time seeking trivialities about which they can be upset.

For more than a month, I have been waiting on basic items, not necessarily to reaffirm or bolster my identity as much to simply maintain it against the unrelenting, subtle forces that exist within a men’s prison to oppress, deny, and erase all non-masculine traits, with men’s prison obviously being the peaks of testosterone and toxic masculinit: emotions are not expressed, oether than anger. Imagine trying to maintain femininity in an environment entirely ruled by testosterone, much less attempting to enhance one’s feminine side such that behavior more closely matches the interior. Even if I had every resources that I’ve collected over the last decade in my life as a trans woman, simply existing as myself would be a challenge; with those resources denied me by policy, and with the meager substitutes taking now more than a month to reach me, the task is utterly impossible.

This shouldn’t be taken as necessarily the fault of the BOP, just as rain is not really to blame for the erosion of soil; rather, that it is this way is a reflection of social values. Though society increasingly recognizes the rights and needs of transgender individuals, the government always lags behind, and then always fails to actually meet the needs that are recognized–someone with a malignant growth will have to wait months to have it addressed, because the prison industrial complex is not equipped to act with grace and compassion. Given that this is the case, perhaps our first goal should be to not have the largest prison population on the planet, and, in so doing, we would lessen the hardship unnecessarily placed on all people, transgender or not, and that could only ever be a positive thing for us all.

Federal District Church Court

One of the biggest frustrations with the federal court system is the fact that recording hearings in any form is completely forbidden, and has been since 1946. No audio, no video, no photographs can be taken. Only pen/pencil and paper are allowed. We tried to get the judge to provide at least an online/phone audio feed as the federal civil courts had done since COVID. The courtroom is wired for sound and video at least since COVID, but alas, we were not successful in our request.

Free Keene blogger Chris Waid did an amazing job taking and transcribing notes every day and those were posted here, but no one sitting in the audience can capture all that is said. Thankfully, the court does offer an official record, which of course one must pay for. Since I plan to appeal my ridiculous convictions for victimless “crimes” regarding selling bitcoin, we have to have the full transcripts. Now we do and I’m legally able to share them publicly.

To make them easier to search and copy, I’ve put them all through Optical Character Recognition, so you can easily select blocks of text you might want to use for whatever purpose. Certainly there are many ridiculous moments that were hopefully somewhat captured by text, though obviously you don’t have the benefit of the witness’ facial expressions. Hopefully someday cameras will be allowed into federal courts, but for now full transcripts months later are the best we can do.

You can download all the trial transcripts in PDF form here as a ZIP file. It also includes the following index as a TXT file, showing the witnesses called on each day. Each PDF also has its own index up front showing the witnesses and pages on which their direct, cross, and any redirect examinations of them took place. Each day usually has two files, one for morning and one for afternoon. You can click each individually below if you don’t want to download them all at once in the ZIP file. (Depending on your browser, you may need to right click and save as to get the download working.)

Day 1 PM – Opening Statements
Day 2 AM – PROSECUTION – Alexandra Comolli
Day 2 PM – Alexandra Comolli, Theodore Vlahakis
Day 3 AM – Theodore Vlahakis, Kathryn Thibault, Kevin McCusker, Derek Feather
Day 3 PM – Christopher Rietmann, Colleen Fordham
Day 4 AM – Hope Cherry, Bruce Sweet, Pavel Prilotsky
Day 4 PM – Pavel Prilotsky, Renee Spinella
Day 5 AM – Dustin Wong, Nicholas Nathans, James Rossell, Patrick Brown, Harold Jones
Day 5 PM – Harold Jones, Melanie Neighbors, Karla Cino
Day 6 AM – Kendall McBrearty
Day 6 PM – Dannela Varel, Kendall McBrearty
Day 7 AM – Kendall McBrearty, Rebecca Ault, Kate Eyerman, Nancy Triestram
Day 7 PM – Nancy Triestram, Diane Cacace, Thomas Connolly, Colleen Ranahan
Day 8 AM – Renee Spinella
Day 9 AM – DEFENSE – Keith Murphy, Max Santonastaso, Edward Forster, Adam Mosher, Dael Chapman, Carolynn Urbanski, Melinda Cambiar, Ian Freeman
Day 9 PM – Ian Freeman
Day 10 AM – Mohammed Ali, Paul Niwa, Closing Arguments
Day 10 PM – Jury Instructions
Day 11 – Verdict

The latest on the case is both sides are currently arguing over the motion to dismiss that my attorney, Mark Sisti, made during the trial at both the close of prosecution and at the end of the defense. Presuming the judge does not throw out all eight counts, we will move to sentencing that is currently set for August 17th, though there is a good chance that will be delayed yet again. Should you wish to write the judge on my behalf, you can find instructions and an address here.

Meanwhile, my co-defendant Aria DiMezzo is in a federal prison camp in Devens, MA serving an 18-month sentence for the completely victimless paperwork violation of operating a “money transmitting business” without a government permission slip. Sadly, but understandably – it’s scary to face down a dozen charges in front of government-biased juries – she took a plea to the charge despite the statutes not mentioning cryptocurrency in any way and despite the fact that bitcoin is never “transmitted” at all, by the government’s own definition of “transmitting”. Unfortunately one cannot appeal a plea deal under most circumstances, so she’ll have to serve some as-yet-undetermined amount of the 18-month sentence. However, you can help her make the time go faster by writing her letters, sending books, or money for commissary. Instructions are here at AriaDiMezzo.com.

As always, stay tuned here to Free Keene or Free Talk Live for the latest.

If you’re an old-school Cop Block supporter, you surely remember Cell 411. It was a killer app that allowed the user to send GPS-based emergency alerts out to friends and family and also allowed for live streaming video from the scene, among other useful features for police accountability activists.

For instance, a Cop Blocker could be getting pulled over, send an alert to a “cell” including other Cop Blockers in the area, and then others would know the sender’s location and what was happening, and could mobilize to the scene to provide support. Meanwhile, the Cop Blocker who sent the alert could also stream live video from the pullover that his cohorts could watch while they were en route.

The app also had alerts for other categories such as fire, medical emergency, breakdown, and others. The idea being that when something bad is happening in your life, it’s better to have friends respond instead of armed psychopaths who might shoot you, your family, or your dog. In case you’re not already familiar with Cell 411, here’s a video that Cop Block’s co-founder Pete Eyre made showing the app’s various features several years ago:

Unfortunately, after years of useful service, Cell 411 fell into disrepair due to its founder falling on hard times due to some family difficulties. He reached out to me and the Shire Free Church took over the project in 2020, but by that time the software was essentially broken.

The first thing I wanted to do was open source Cell 411’s programming, which we have done. The project’s new head programmer, “Nobody”, is an old-school Cop Blocker and has spent the last few years – minus six months in jail when he was targeted by the feds for selling bitcoin – trying to refactor and improve the code. However, he needs help. It’s more than a one-man project and he’s getting burned out and needs some people with programming experience for Android and iOS who are willing to help make Cell 411 great again.

If you don’t know how to program, you can still help us test the app.

If you’re willing to help, please join our Matrix or Telegram support chats to get connected, and introduce yourself. You can also find our code at our Gitlab here.

Please share this story if you value Cell 411. Thank you.

My good friend and the High Priestess of the Reformed Satanic Church of Keene, Aria DiMezzo, has begun her 18 month federal prison sentence for the victimless “crime” of selling bitcoin without a government permission slip. You can find out how to write her letters, send her books, or money for her commissary on her blog post here. Today she sent me the following blog from jail, as originally posted to her website, AriaDiMezzo.com:

As observed masterfully in The Gulag Archipelago, everything changes after the arrest–rather, everything changes *during* the arrest. I had previously divided my life into “pre-New Hampshire” and after moving to the Granite State, but the arrest, the violence of the FBI threatening to shoot me, and the traumatic reality into which I was thrust that the illusion of safety had been ripped away became the new dividing point for me. While they searched my house for people and weapons, and as I stolld in only panties and a blanket as early morning wintry winds of New Hampshire swept through my house more efficiently than any strike team, I said nothing but held out hope that they were there for my roommate, not for me. This pipedream was soon smashed like my front door, as they escorted me into another part of my house, closed the doors, disconnected my cameras, and told me that I was under arrest.

There are a few subtle, but important ways that my raid and arrest differs from those recounted by Solzhenitsyn. The United States has watched the rise and fall fo empires and ideologies, and has learned from the mistakes of Hitler, Mao, and the USSR. It knows that Americans would never allow the secret arrests, lack of charges, and other silliness of the USSR. Like other Communist rulerships, the USSR wielded uncertainty and terror as its primary weapons, but Americans would never allow tyranny to approach in such a way. The “rule of law” is too critical to the propaganda of the U.S., and such behavior would undermine the one great conceit underpinning the entire monstrous system: because of Democracy, that blessed thing, we are the government, and we create the law, and, as such, we do these things to ourselves; they are not done to us, against our will, by an unaccountable terrorist regime, because we consent to this! Even if you or I don’t, *we* do, and somehow this illusory entity is able to act without our actual consent.

The weapons of the USSR have been replaced by the loaded gun that is the Democracy, “the majority!”, and as long as that illusion is allowed to persist, the Americans will do nothing. Anything so crass as the Soviet display where a captive audience was forced to clap for Stalin for fifteen and more minutes, and Americans would revolt. In the U.S., no leader is supreme, or above any other person, and yet *is* above every person, a priest in this religion called statism, this wretched cult, and any decree they make must present itself as separate from the flesh herald–the priest speaks, but only, we are assured, to relay to us the message from our god, the unimpeachable and unknown Majority. Any display of respect or adoration must be made to the institutions, to the Church, and to the god–to do otherwise, as Trump did (and, indeed, Trump partially shattered this American illusion for millions), is to threaten to derail the entire system, leaving us at the mercy not of a benevolent majority but a corrupt tyrant.

And how could Americans not fall for the ruse? Nearly all childrens’ cartoons and coloring books present the Friendly Policeman, only there to help old ladies cross the street and to protect the children. And really! Is there anything more absolutely absurd in our world than how closely linked in the cultural zeitgeist are police and firefighters? How might we react if firefighters searched around for problems to justify their existence, and campaigned to legislatures for new regulations to make fires more likely (and, thus, their need to exist, and, critically, their *budgets* ever greater)? But we learn as children that these thugs who exist solely to use violence against us, are still somehow our friends, and rare is the person who succumbs to this constant programming for 18 years, and then breaks free.

Liberty mom Shalon Spaulding was charged with “Child Endangerment” for the dastardly “crime” of leaving her two-year-old in her car with the AC on and the child strapped into the carseat. A busybody who happens to work for the Merrimack County Attorney, one Donna Barnett, was the one who called in the police. Shalon’s husband, Jay Noone, was given permission to be her “attorney-in-fact” and was able to get the police officer to admit that the child was not endangered. However, the robed man ended up finding her guilty days later.

The good news is, in New Hampshire, on a “Class A Misdemeanor” a guilty finding from a bench trial can be appealed “de novo”, and they start all over again in “Superior Court” with a full jury. Stay tuned to Free Keene for the latest on this ridiculous attack on parental freedoms, and enjoy this full video of Shalon’s arraignment and trial:

Frank “Footloose” Staples was wrongfully arrested on charges of “disorderly conduct” for sitting quietly at an executive council meeting in 2021. Last week his nearly two-month trial wrapped up, with Frank found not guilty of the initial “disorderly”, but guilty of the subsequent charge he received after he announced to the audience that he was being arrested in the back of the room. He intends to appeal.

In five days of court spread out over weeks, the state police’s prosecutors alleged Frank was disrupting the meeting and that’s why he was targeted. Frank’s multiple witnesses said he was never disruptive and that the state police were clearly looking to make arrests, as the chairs were zip tied together, multiple paddy wagons were on hand, and dozens of uniformed officers were present.

Ultimately the robed man decided the state had not met its burden of proof on the initial charge, but claimed, confusingly, that the police had probable cause to make the arrest. How can the police have probable cause to make an arrest for which the person is then found not guilty? They can’t. The judge is obviously covering for the police and trying to justify the second “disorderly” count that Frank received when he was taken behind the curtain and arrested, which is when he yelled that he was being arrested and to “shut it down!”.

The trial was very entertaining with Frank blowing up and yelling at the judge and the prosecutors many times. If you’ve seen him in court videos before, you know what to expect. I hope you enjoy this 13-hour trial video:

A few dozen of the ~50 supporters who turned out for Aria’s sentencing hearing

A judge in the Crypto6 case has sentenced Free State activist Aria DiMezzo to 18 months in federal prison on Tuesday for operating a cryptocurrency business without a government permission slip.

In September of 2022 Aria was coerced into taking a plea deal over a politically motivated attack on Ian Freeman, the Shire Free Church, and Free Talk live. Fraudulent charges were brought against Aria by the feds claiming that she operated an unlicensed money transmitting business. Ignorance in the courts as to what Bitcoin was unfortunately left Aria in a very difficult situation. Judge Joseph Laplante didn’t understand what Bitcoin was and after some effort to explain it failed he was left believing that the blockchain was a person. It isn’t. The blockchain is more akin to a database or a ledger of records.

https://www.freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/aria-crypto6-after-sentencing-speech.mp4

Aria Talks To Reporters After Sentencing Decision Is Handed Down Outside Court

 

Under the money transmitter statutes one is a money transmitter and requires a money transmitting license if one acts as an intermediary to move money from one location to another or from one person to another for profit. Examples of this include Western Union, Money Gram, and Walmart’s Walmart2Walmart money transfer service. Bitcoin isn’t money in the sense that the laws define it under the money transmission statutes- particularly those that were at play during the time that sales of Bitcoin by the two churches occurred.

Aria nor the Reformed Satanic Church had any obligation to register with the state or federal government according to the banking bureaucrats and lawyers. As such neither the Shire Free Church nor the Reformed Satanic Church were registered as money transmitting entities. Agents of the state made clear during state hearings that Bitcoin wasn’t regulated under these money transmission statutes saying that moving Bitcoin from ones own wallet to that of another is not regulated. It’s possible that in some states and countries Bitcoin is regulated or it is under other circumstances. However, according to the lawyers that wasn’t the case here as the churches crypto vending machines were not connected to an exchange and did not act as an intermediary. For this and other reasons including the lack of conducting such activities for profit registration at the state and federal levels were not required.

The prosecution has attempted to imply that the churches were fake through use of choice words such as “purported churches” while never providing any evidence (such as during Ian Freeman’s trial) that the churches were in fact fake. Rather what was revealed during Ian Freeman’s trial was that the churches were real. The Shire Free Church is an interfaith church founded in 2013 with the aim of promoting peace, love, and liberty and anyone of any belief with that as its foundation is welcome. It wasn’t until many years later that the Shire Free Church setup a Bitcoin outreach operation to promote and raise funds for charitable causes. To that end the church did setup a DBA called the Crypto Church Of New Hampshire for the those outreach efforts, but this was merely one outreach effort involving crypto, not a church unto itself. Other non-crypto outreach efforts occurred as well such as helping the homeless, orphans in Africa, and locally persecuted religious minority: A minority Muslim community in Keene. The Shire Free Church has for over a decade helped low income families and others with drug addictions. The church has raised funds to build orphanages in Africa and helped minority religious groups in Keene by providing space and covering costs to renovate said space to be a mosque. During the cleaning and renovation period parishioners of the Shire Free Church got together and cleaned the space that would become the mosque. While the Reformed Satanic Church was at the time of the raid a young church the church and its parishioners had participated in fundraising activities to help kids with cancer. DiMezzo’s church sold about ~$3,178,895 of Bitcoin between June of 2020 and January of 2021 with about $30,000 being raised for charity according to prosecutors (though they would not call it charity, but profit despite no evidence to that end).

The prosecution claimed DiMezzo worked closely with Freeman, and discussion during her sentencing hearing hinged largely on this connection. This connection was manipulative in that the Shire Free Church had been around and selling crypto for many years prior to the Reformed Satanic Churches founding. As a result the church had one of the best ratings and demand from those wanting to purchase cryptocurrency. The Shire Free Churches operation couldn’t handle it and as a result Ian started referring people to the Reformed Satanic Church. As both churches were going above and beyond what was required by law each did what is required of money transmitters- that is they did something called “know your customer” even though they didn’t have to. Know your customer is basically a system for deterring criminals from utilizing money transmitting services in their criminal operations by requiring banks and money transmitters to identify customers and ask questions. It’s an imperfect if not entirely broken system- but the idea is that if you identify your customer by requiring ID and ask appropriate questions you can thwart some scammers and criminal activity. In that process the churches would require people to submit paperwork including copies of IDs or passports, pictures of notes stating that they understood what they were buying was Bitcoin, and in many instances calls would be made to those purchasing Bitcoin. Questions would be asked in an attempt to weed out potential victims. In one case Ian was quoted as having asked a women if she had ever met her husband just to make sure that she wasn’t being manipulated. Unfortunately the reality is victims of scams will often say anything that they are told by scammers in order to get around KYC efforts. Of interesting note is that not a single bank even bothered to call any of the 7-8 victims regarding these transactions that the state put up on the stand to testify. A credit union employee who testified for the prosecution and was the credit unions expert on know your customer even testified that financial institutions aren’t required to stop suspicious transactions as this is why the credit union didn’t cut off the Shire Free Church until numerous transactions had occurred. No, the churches went above and beyond what was required and this is why Aria’s phone and Ian’s computer contained photos of which the prosecutor attempted to manipulate into being evidence of a connection. Out of 6,000 transactions a few victims had utilized both the Shire Free Church and the Reformed Satanic Church’s services. Even had such a connection existed there was no evidence of fraud presented during Ian’s trial, just mere implications that Ian should have been suspicious of some transactions because the persons were elderly. As if elderly persons aren’t interested in Bitcoin. Humorously the defense lawyer pointed out most of the victims were younger than he was. The victims even testified that Ian Freeman was not part of the scams so to try and suggest Aria knew of the scam by way of Ian was just propitious given neither knew of the individualized scams at the time Bitcoin transactions were occurring.

In the sentencing memorandum, the defense requested three years of supervised release with one of those years to be home confinement. The prosecutors on the other hand demanded the maximum sentence that the plea agreement would allow for: 37 months in prison.

The defense won their argument that bringing in Ian Freeman’s trial was inappropriate and the judge stated in his decision on the sentence “I’m considering not a shred of evidence from the Freeman trial”. Aria will have to pay a $2,500 fine, $100 special assessment, serve 18 months in a cage, and serve one year of supervised release following her release from prison.

The hearing brought out around ~50 supporters, mostly Free Staters who understood that this was a case of political persecution and attempt to take out Ian Freeman and Free Talk Live. One FBI agent Phil Christiana in particular has been at the core of these attacks. FBI agent Phil Christiana has had his sight on Ian Freeman and other Free Staters for over a decade. The FBI targeted Ian Freeman in at least 2012, 2016, and 2021. The 2012 incident involved an arrest of Rich Paul over small time drug dealing (Mr Nobody of the Crypto6 case) for the purposes of blackmailing him into wearing a wire into the Keene activist center (of which were connected to Ian Freeman). The 2016 case involved a smear campaign and a false affidavit where a warrant was obtained for a search over a despicable crime that hadn’t occurred in an effort to ruin Ian’s reputation and undermine the ability of Free Talk Live to continue. It was also an attempt at dividing the Free Sate Project community in two and undermining its effectiveness at bringing like-minded pro-freedom pro-peace individuals to New Hampshire. The Free State Project can be summarized as a migration effort to build a community of peaceful people in one state that can achieve real freedom somewhere. No evidence was ever found on any of more than two dozen devices seized in 2016 and no charges were ever filed. Then in 2021 the Crypto6 case was brought despite the individuals targeted being excessively compliant with the law.

Aria’s sentence will begin June 27 and give her time to officiate a wedding.

After the sentencing hearing Aria was greeted by about ~50 supporters and when asked about her thoughts on the sentence she said she believed “having a license wouldn’t have achieved anything”. Another cryptocurrency vending machine operator in the audience with over 20 machines agreed with her assessment calling the sentence unfair. Others thought this case to be yet another travesty of the so called justice system and yet another fraud on the public. What happens in court doesn’t matter so long as the prosecution tells a good story and judges and juries continue to be carefully crafted to favor prosecutors. Most prosecutors including judge La Plante in this case are former prosecutors. Out of 36 members (after eliminating others from the pool) the prosecutor removed the only juror who had ever touched Bitcoin.

 

For more detailed updates, video, and more regarding the ongoing Crypto6 case and Ian Freeman’s appeal of his conviction check out TheCrypto6.com

 

A detailed run down of what happened during Aria’s sentencing hearing

Prosecutor

Aframe & Kennedy

Aria elects to continue despite lawyer’s motion to delay as a result of freemans trial

Judge talks about sentencing guidelines and not having to obey them

Defense

Objections to PSR (pre-sentcing report done by the probation department) do not directly involve freeman case and are not connected to Aria

Judge

Offense level is 19

Criminal History Level 1

This is the bottom of the scale

30-37 months is the range according to the sentencing guideline

Fine is $10-100k + $100 special assessment fee

Aria is requesting a downward variance from these guidelines

The prosecutor is not requesting anything different from the guidelines

Justice here requires a more lenient sentence than the guidelines state

Prosecutor

Makes a point of the importance of the offense and argues it’s not just a mere regulatory offense as the defense argues

This is an oversimplification and selling crypto is dangerous if done outside of regulatory controls

DiMezzo operated over several months without controls

[ this is actually false in that both Aria and Ian complied with the regulations, and thus this is only a sentence for not being registered as a money transmitter, Aria did more KYC, or followed the know your customer procedures than did the banks of which were actually involved in transmitting money unlike that of Aria ]

This is more significant just not having a license

[ Aria didn’t please guilty to more than not being registered and the government is trying to bring in things that had nothing to do with Aria’s plea agreement, potentially violating the very agreement which would open the doors to her being able to back out of said plea agreement and take the case to trial ]

She kept photos of victims

[ the humorous part of this is that by following the law and performing KYC you are required to keep copies of the drivers licenses and passports which means the government is claiming that by following the law Aria broke the law as they are trying to twist KYC documents like copies of drivers licenses and signed contracts by the ‘victims’ stating that they understand that they are buying Bitcoin alongside a picture of the document and themselves, thus trying to argue these folks are victims, particularly of Aria is absurd, the victims lied to Aria when questions were asked as part of the KYC process to try and stop third party scammers from taking advantage of vulnerable folks, but when vulnerable folks partake in the scams themselves there is little a seller of crypto or a bank can do to stop it ]

Photos from Ian’s computer and Aria’s phone had some of the same photos

[ this is largely correct because the Shire Free Church had more sales than it could keep up with and thus referred smaller customers over to the Reformed Satanic Temple that Aria was selling crypto on behalf of ]

She was a conduit

[ yea, and on that logic so was the bank, but you aren’t prosecuting the bank, of which none did KYC according to your own witnesses, KYC may not work in all cases, and it did not work in a handful of cases here, but this is also out of 6,000 transactions that the FBI found 7-8 victims between 2 different organizations, that isn’t a bad track record, it’s an unbelievably impressive track record ]

“intentional local blindness”

[ intentional or willful blindness is a concept where you ignore evidence that a crime is being committed by a third party and sell to them anyway- this didn’t happen and the evidence presented during Ian’s trial actually showed that at least Ian refused to sell to an undercover FBI agent pretending to a drug dealer … but actually following the law doesn’t matter.. the scummy eastern european federal agent just got up on the stand and said, something to the effect of he may not have said he would sell to be, but he gave me a wink and a nod, now that was despite when questioned admitting no such wink and a nod occurred, nor was there any evidence of such a wink and nod occuring in a figurative manor as the undercover agent went around Ian to one of the Shire Free Churches vending machines and it wasn’t until the trial that Ian learned that the guy purchased what I believe was about $20,000 of cryptocurrency through the vending machine, this is the undercover agent never told Ian he was going to purchase Bitcoin from the vending machine, and Ian had no means of stopping him even if he had said he was going to do this… the vending machines are not Ians and they are the Shire Free Church.. even had he known what could he have done? Call up the business where the church rented space and ask them to tackle a man who looked like a big eastern european gang member? The jury completely ignored the knowing requirement in the law given Ian didn’t knowingly sell to the man ]

She made prosecutions hard… she would not find out what people were using Bitcoin for

[ this is just false in that questions were asked where red flags existed and every one of the victims at Ian’s trial was called by Ian and the so called victims testified to that… and spoken with to ensure that there were no misunderstanding or risks such as there being coercion by a third party or romance situation where the significant other had never met … and as these KYC procedures were followed the government actually has the photos and IDs of the scammers yet refuses according to the victims to go after the fraudsters despite knowing who they are .. Ian and Aria did not make it difficult for the feds to investigate… they did their job for them… ]

“don’t ever sell to anyone who tells you their business”

[ this is more or less what Aria said in a presentation on selling Bitcoin she gave… it was taken out of context as Aria and Ian did do KYC and were doing more than they were required to under the law … and in context to the presentation it’s simply that if you sell crypto to someone that is committing a crime the government will argue you have broken the law… it’s not that Ian or Aria weren’t doing KYC, but didn’t want to deal with potentially problem customers, not that they didn’t do KYC or ask any questions as would be required had they actually been obligated to do KYC in the first place which they weren’t as the law also says that businesses for profit, not churches or charitable organizations must register and do KYC, but despite that the churches did do KYC even though they did not register, thus regulatory violation is what Aria pleaded guilty to, not anything else, particularly not fraud ]

She continues to not understand the callus way she operated her business

[ we should talk about the callus way in which you are prosecuting an innocent person… but no she was no callus in the way the church raised money for charitable causes by selling crypto and took more steps to ensure people didn’t become victims of scams even though it was NOT her business what anyone did with their crypto … I don’t ask my customers what they do with their computers that are purchased from my company and it’s not that different here .. they might use them in illegal ways but I’d only be obligated to do something if I had reason to believe they were committing a crime .. Bitcoin is not money as it was defined under the law at the time this fundraising was ongoing and it wasn’t until after the FBI raid in 2021 that the federal government changed the law which still probably doesn’t include Bitcoin ]

They play an audio clip of Free Talk Live, a show Aria co-hosts where she criticizes the federal government and the agents: “Moral of story is if you want to make money and not get in trouble you need to scam people. They want the scammers to exist.”

[ they are trying to take this out of context and make it out as if Aria is advocating people scam others rather than sell crypto ? ]

She put head in sand blaming the victim

[ this is an exaggeration, but the so-called victims DID actually participate in scamming others in that at least one person during Ian’s trail testified that he would receive money from others and send it onward to the scammer and another so-called victim stated that he was told he was engaged in money laundering as one bank split up with him.. despite this he continued doing it .. unlike what Aria was doing which was ONLY selling a product and not money transmission .. and despite that doing KYC when it wasn’t required under the law as it was written at the time ]

Her background is neither plus nor minus

[ basically her childhood upbringing wasn’t great and this is what defense lawyers do at sentencing as such things are mitigating factors at sentencing .. but of course the prosecutor wants the judge to ignore it ]

This was a way to make money

It’s a business crime, a financial crime

[ that wasn’t the case and as Ian’s case demonstrated 85% of the dollars that went into church accounts according to the governments own witnesses went back into purchasing bitcoin which makes sense if you are selling bitcoin for charity… and then there was other evidence that demonstrated that the money went to charitable causes like building orphanages in Africa and local causes such as converting a house into a mosque for a minority religious community in Keene .. and at no time did the prosecutor present any evidence as to what the money was used for which is pretty important if you are going to argue that it was a business venture of some kind as that is written in the law … doing it without charging a fee as a hobby is also not within the scope of the law as written just as doing it for charity is not in the scope of the law as written ]

Virtual currencies need to be used appropriately and we need to send that message

[ this is disgusting… the idea that they get to tell you and I what we can and can’t do with our own money… but it’s even more disgusting in that they want to treat bitcoin different than how we treat cash … have you ever been asked by a bank what you are going to do with the cash you withdraw from the ATM machine? Of course not.. yet this is what they’re claiming is required under KYC despite their own witness, a credit union lady, testifying that you DO NOT have to go over every transaction with a fine tooth comb which means the banks were not even failing in their KYC obligations when they allowed victims to be victimized … KYC doesn’t work … even when you go overboard as was the case with the Crypto6 cases ]

Defense

Prosecutor acknowledged acceptance of conviction

– no fraud on aria’s part
– aria didn’t cause any losses
– aria cooperated with government and provided the government access to devices with bitcoin worth $50-60k
– she recognizes that despite lack of knowledge of scams
– she wanted the money to compensate victims
– there was no violence involved here
– there were no drugs involved here

It’s a regulatory offense that involves no fraud

No money laundering charges exist here

It’s also not beyond dispute that it is regulated or not
[ aww yea, each state government and 3 letter agency claims it is something different ]

They try to connect Ian and Aria based on IDs

If you were engaged in fraud you wouldn’t keep this information and she preserved everything

As misguided as she was about licensing she was not out to defraud anyone

The guidelines are misleading because no losses occurred

Normally they are used when someone is unjustly enriched

This is not a case with a loss or restitution

36 transactions with no prior criminal record

She grew up in a very impoverished area and courts recognize experiences in childhood are mitigating circumstances as children do not control their surroundings

She lives in a rental unit, works at dominos, and not someone who stole 3 million dollars

She is no threat to the public

The only reason to incarcerate her is as a deterrence to others

Prosecutor

$30k Aria made from selling crypto

[ no evidence of this actually exists and was pointed out it’s entirely speculative, but not relevant either way ]

Defense

She did no knowingly facilitate scammers

[ keyword in the law here is knowingly, not all laws have a knowingly component, but this one does ]

With a straw purchase (gun sales where someone buys a gun for someone else who is a criminal) the straw purchaser knows they are facilitating gang members.

[ this is is important because the prosecution brought up straw purchases in gun cases to suggest it doesn’t matter if Aria knows or not, but it does actually matter and it’s not a proper analogy as she didn’t know about ANY sale that was going to enable scammers ]

Aria makes a statement:

I did not know or think it was suspicious
It’s not Ian’s fault

In regard to clip I was not trying to help criminals

I wanted to bring down the banking system as privacy is valuable

I don’t ask the person I have cut my grass what they intend to do with payment

[ this is important because it’s dependent on how Bitcoin is defined whether or not you have to comply with money transmission laws and the regulators don’t get to decide this.. the law is unclear… but what everyone agrees on is Bitcoin is not like anything that has come before suggesting it requires legislation if it is to be defined as money… this is almost certainly one of the things that are going to be appealed as this is a matter of law and the judge ruled on it before the trial without understanding what Bitcoin was… calling the blockchain a person… and then instructing the jury it is money when it has not been clearly established under the law as such… there may be other issues here in the the law is overly broad and that might be another issue upon which an appeal can be based ]

Judge

I am going to grant a downward variance, but the sentence will include incarceration.

18 months [cage time]

I will not take into consideration a shred of evidence from the Freeman trial

It was a regulatory crime

This crime is a crime to protect the integrity of the financial system

General deterrence makes sense

[ the judge is saying here that the only reason he is putting her in a cage is to send a message and not because of what she did ]

Judge says she can self report

Defense

Lawyer chimes up and reserves right to appeal

[ Judge is curious on the basis of that appeal ]

The sentence has a procedure and substances defect

It’s out of proportion to the crime committed

The court has been influences by allegations of fraud

Judge

18 months cage time + 1 year supervised release

$100 special assessment fee

$5,000 fine, which is half of the guideline range

[ this is positive as it means she gets a downward variance on the fine and the time served ]

Aria must post $2,500 within 60 days of sentencing

Aria must self report June 17th … something about so that Aria can attend a weeding it sounded like.

Judge will put in a recommendation for a Massachusetts or Connecticut federal prison per request by the defense

If you’ve got this far you’re probably a dedicated fan of the Crypto6 and the freedoms we’re all fighting for. Consider making a contribution to the independence filmmakers who are currently working on part 2 of a 2 part fundraiser to produce a documentary on the Crypto6. They’ve been actively filming and working on said documentary for a few years now. Check out sneak peaks and take the time to make a contribution at:

https://balladofthecrypto6.com/

Aria’s Sentencing Hearing

Prosecutor

Aframe & Kennedy

Aria elects to continue despite lawyer’s motion to delay as a result of freemans trial

Judge talks about sentencing guidelines and not having to obey them

Defense

Objections to PSR (pre-sentcing report done by the probation department) do not directly involve freeman case and are not connected to Aria

Judge

Offense level is 19

Criminal History Level 1

This is the bottom of the scale

30-37 months is the range according to the sentencing guideline

Fine is $10-100k + $100 special assessment fee

Aria is requesting a downward variance from these guidelines

The prosecutor is not requesting anything different from the guidelines

Justice here requires a more lenient sentence than the guidelines state

Prosecutor

Makes a point of the importance of the offense and argues it’s not just a mere regulatory offense as the defense argues

This is an oversimplification and selling crypto is dangerous if done outside of regulatory controls

DiMezzo operated over several months without controls

[ this is actually false in that both Aria and Ian complied with the regulations, and thus this is only a sentence for not being registered as a money transmitter, Aria did more KYC, or followed the know your customer procedures than did the banks of which were actually involved in transmitting money unlike that of Aria ]

This is more significant just not having a license

[ Aria didn’t please guilty to more than not being registered and the government is trying to bring in things that had nothing to do with Aria’s plea agreement, potentially violating the very agreement which would open the doors to her being able to back out of said plea agreement and take the case to trial ]

She kept photos of victims

[ the humorous part of this is that by following the law and performing KYC you are required to keep copies of the drivers licenses and passports which means the government is claiming that by following the law Aria broke the law as they are trying to twist KYC documents like copies of drivers licenses and signed contracts by the ‘victims’ stating that they understand that they are buying Bitcoin alongside a picture of the document and themselves, thus trying to argue these folks are victims, particularly of Aria is absurd, the victims lied to Aria when questions were asked as part of the KYC process to try and stop third party scammers from taking advantage of vulnerable folks, but when vulnerable folks partake in the scams themselves there is little a seller of crypto or a bank can do to stop it ]

Photos from Ian’s computer and Aria’s phone had some of the same photos

[ this is largely correct because the Shire Free Church had more sales than it could keep up with and thus referred smaller customers over to the Reformed Satanic Temple that Aria was selling crypto on behalf of ]

She was a conduit

[ yea, and on that logic so was the bank, but you aren’t prosecuting the bank, of which none did KYC according to your own witnesses, KYC may not work in all cases, and it did not work in a handful of cases here, but this is also out of 6,000 transactions that the FBI found 7-8 victims between 2 different organizations, that isn’t a bad track record, it’s an unbelievably impressive track record ]

“intentional local blindness”

[ intentional or willful blindness is a concept where you ignore evidence that a crime is being committed by a third party and sell to them anyway- this didn’t happen and the evidence presented during Ian’s trial actually showed that at least Ian refused to sell to an undercover FBI agent pretending to a drug dealer … but actually following the law doesn’t matter.. the scummy eastern european federal agent just got up on the stand and said, something to the effect of he may not have said he would sell to be, but he gave me a wink and a nod, now that was despite when questioned admitting no such wink and a nod occurred, nor was there any evidence of such a wink and nod occuring in a figurative manor as the undercover agent went around Ian to one of the Shire Free Churches vending machines and it wasn’t until the trial that Ian learned that the guy purchased what I believe was about $20,000 of cryptocurrency through the vending machine, this is the undercover agent never told Ian he was going to purchase Bitcoin from the vending machine, and Ian had no means of stopping him even if he had said he was going to do this… the vending machines are not Ians and they are the Shire Free Church.. even had he known what could he have done? Call up the business where the church rented space and ask them to tackle a man who looked like a big eastern european gang member? The jury completely ignored the knowing requirement in the law given Ian didn’t knowingly sell to the man ]

She made prosecutions hard… she would not find out what people were using Bitcoin for

[ this is just false in that questions were asked where red flags existed and every one of the victims at Ian’s trial was called by Ian and the so called victims testified to that… and spoken with to ensure that there were no misunderstanding or risks such as there being coercion by a third party or romance situation where the significant other had never met … and as these KYC procedures were followed the government actually has the photos and IDs of the scammers yet refuses according to the victims to go after the fraudsters despite knowing who they are .. Ian and Aria did not make it difficult for the feds to investigate… they did their job for them… ]

“don’t ever sell to anyone who tells you their business”

[ this is more or less what Aria said in a presentation on selling Bitcoin she gave… it was taken out of context as Aria and Ian did do KYC and were doing more than they were required to under the law … and in context to the presentation it’s simply that if you sell crypto to someone that is committing a crime the government will argue you have broken the law… it’s not that Ian or Aria weren’t doing KYC, but didn’t want to deal with potentially problem customers, not that they didn’t do KYC or ask any questions as would be required had they actually been obligated to do KYC in the first place which they weren’t as the law also says that businesses for profit, not churches or charitable organizations must register and do KYC, but despite that the churches did do KYC even though they did not register, thus regulatory violation is what Aria pleaded guilty to, not anything else, particularly not fraud ]

She continues to not understand the callus way she operated her business

[ we should talk about the callus way in which you are prosecuting an innocent person… but no she was no callus in the way the church raised money for charitable causes by selling crypto and took more steps to ensure people didn’t become victims of scams even though it was NOT her business what anyone did with their crypto … I don’t ask my customers what they do with their computers that are purchased from my company and it’s not that different here .. they might use them in illegal ways but I’d only be obligated to do something if I had reason to believe they were committing a crime .. Bitcoin is not money as it was defined under the law at the time this fundraising was ongoing and it wasn’t until after the FBI raid in 2021 that the federal government changed the law which still probably doesn’t include Bitcoin ]

They play an audio clip of Free Talk Live, a show Aria co-hosts where she criticizes the federal government and the agents: “Moral of story is if you want to make money and not get in trouble you need to scam people. They want the scammers to exist.”

[ they are trying to take this out of context and make it out as if Aria is advocating people scam others rather than sell crypto ? ]

She put head in sand blaming the victim

[ this is an exaggeration, but the so-called victims DID actually participate in scamming others in that at least one person during Ian’s trail testified that he would receive money from others and send it onward to the scammer and another so-called victim stated that he was told he was engaged in money laundering as one bank split up with him.. despite this he continued doing it .. unlike what Aria was doing which was ONLY selling a product and not money transmission .. and despite that doing KYC when it wasn’t required under the law as it was written at the time ]

Her background is neither plus nor minus

[ basically her childhood upbringing wasn’t great and this is what defense lawyers do at sentencing as such things are mitigating factors at sentencing .. but of course the prosecutor wants the judge to ignore it ]

This was a way to make money

It’s a business crime, a financial crime

[ that wasn’t the case and as Ian’s case demonstrated 85% of the dollars that went into church accounts according to the governments own witnesses went back into purchasing bitcoin which makes sense if you are selling bitcoin for charity… and then there was other evidence that demonstrated that the money went to charitable causes like building orphanages in Africa and local causes such as converting a house into a mosque for a minority religious community in Keene .. and at no time did the prosecutor present any evidence as to what the money was used for which is pretty important if you are going to argue that it was a business venture of some kind as that is written in the law … doing it without charging a fee as a hobby is also not within the scope of the law as written just as doing it for charity is not in the scope of the law as written ]

Virtual currencies need to be used appropriately and we need to send that message

[ this is disgusting… the idea that they get to tell you and I what we can and can’t do with our own money… but it’s even more disgusting in that they want to treat bitcoin different than how we treat cash … have you ever been asked by a bank what you are going to do with the cash you withdraw from the ATM machine? Of course not.. yet this is what they’re claiming is required under KYC despite their own witness, a credit union lady, testifying that you DO NOT have to go over every transaction with a fine tooth comb which means the banks were not even failing in their KYC obligations when they allowed victims to be victimized … KYC doesn’t work … even when you go overboard as was the case with the Crypto6 cases ]

Defense

Prosecutor acknowledged acceptance of conviction

– no fraud on aria’s part
– aria didn’t cause any losses
– aria cooperated with government and provided the government access to devices with bitcoin worth $50-60k
– she recognizes that despite lack of knowledge of scams
– she wanted the money to compensate victims
– there was no violence involved here
– there were no drugs involved here

It’s a regulatory offense that involves no fraud

No money laundering charges exist here

It’s also not beyond dispute that it is regulated or not
[ aww yea, each state government and 3 letter agency claims it is something different ]

They try to connect Ian and Aria based on IDs

If you were engaged in fraud you wouldn’t keep this information and she preserved everything

As misguided as she was about licensing she was not out to defraud anyone

The guidelines are misleading because no losses occurred

Normally they are used when someone is unjustly enriched

This is not a case with a loss or restitution

36 transactions with no prior criminal record

She grew up in a very impoverished area and courts recognize experiences in childhood are mitigating circumstances as children do not control their surroundings

She lives in a rental unit, works at dominos, and not someone who stole 3 million dollars

She is no threat to the public

The only reason to incarcerate her is as a deterrence to others

Prosecutor

$30k Aria made from selling crypto

[ no evidence of this actually exists and was pointed out it’s entirely speculative, but not relevant either way ]

Defense

She did no knowingly facilitate scammers

[ keyword in the law here is knowingly, not all laws have a knowingly component, but this one does ]

With a straw purchase (gun sales where someone buys a gun for someone else who is a criminal) the straw purchaser knows they are facilitating gang members.

[ this is is important because the prosecution brought up straw purchases in gun cases to suggest it doesn’t matter if Aria knows or not, but it does actually matter and it’s not a proper analogy as she didn’t know about ANY sale that was going to enable scammers ]

Aria makes a statement:

I did not know or think it was suspicious
It’s not Ian’s fault

In regard to clip I was not trying to help criminals

I wanted to bring down the banking system as privacy is valuable

I don’t ask the person I have cut my grass what they intend to do with payment

[ this is important because it’s dependent on how Bitcoin is defined whether or not you have to comply with money transmission laws and the regulators don’t get to decide this.. the law is unclear… but what everyone agrees on is Bitcoin is not like anything that has come before suggesting it requires legislation if it is to be defined as money… this is almost certainly one of the things that are going to be appealed as this is a matter of law and the judge ruled on it before the trial without understanding what Bitcoin was… calling the blockchain a person… and then instructing the jury it is money when it has not been clearly established under the law as such… there may be other issues here in the the law is overly broad and that might be another issue upon which an appeal can be based ]

Judge

I am going to grant a downward variance, but the sentence will include incarceration.

18 months [cage time]

I will not take into consideration a shred of evidence from the Freeman trial

It was a regulatory crime

This crime is a crime to protect the integrity of the financial system

General deterrence makes sense

[ the judge is saying here that the only reason he is putting her in a cage is to send a message and not because of what she did ]

Judge says she can self report

Defense

Lawyer chimes up and reserves right to appeal

[ Judge is curious on the basis of that appeal ]

The sentence has a procedure and substances defect

It’s out of proportion to the crime committed

The court has been influences by allegations of fraud

Judge

18 months cage time + 1 year supervised release

$100 special assessment fee

$5,000 fine, which is half of the guideline range

[ this is positive as it means she gets a downward variance on the fine and the time served ]

Aria must post $2,500 within 60 days of sentencing

Aria must self report June 17th … something about so that Aria can attend a weeding it sounded like.

Judge will put in a recommendation for a Massachusetts or Connecticut federal prison per request by the defense

If you’ve got this far you’re probably a dedicated fan of the Crypto6 and the freedoms we’re all fighting for. Consider making a contribution to the independence filmmakers who are currently working on part 2 of a 2 part fundraiser to produce a documentary on the Crypto6. They’ve been actively filming and working on said documentary for a few years now. Check out sneak peaks and take the time to make a contribution at:

https://balladofthecrypto6.com/

The Wearehouse recently hosted a well-attended debate featuring advocates for cryptocurrency, precious metals, and fiat currency. Jeremy Kauffman from LBRY represented crypto, Silver Dave from Local Silver Mint represented precious metals, and Jay Noone represented fiat currency with his tongue firmly planted in-cheek. Here’s the full video:

A couple of years ago, the New Hampshire Goldback was created after the original Utah Goldback proved incredibly popular at the 2020 Porcfest. A gorgeous, spendable, interchangeable type of gold money available in denominations as small 1/1000th of an ounce of 24 karat gold, the NH Goldback has taken the NH freedom community by storm – giving even cryptocurrency serious competition.

Now, the company behind the Goldback, Alpine Gold, has launched its first physical branch location and they chose Manchester, NH!

I decided I needed to see it for myself, so I set an appointment with Adam Van, the manager, and got him to answer all my questions about the services they provide the community, and the entire eastern portion of the United States. It’s pretty cool – watch the interview here:

Give them a call at (801) 770-2565 x1201 and stop in to see for yourself.

A few weeks ago, 70 state reps voted to end drug prohibition entirely and last week, 90 state reps voted to end prohibition on dimethyltryptamine (DMT)! Here’s the full video from the house floor featuring reps Jason Gerhard, Matt Santonastaso, and Jonah Wheeler speaking in favor of the bill, HB 216, which sadly lost 274-97. However, 26% is a good first try.

Clearly, younger state reps understand the urgency of ending the insane war on drugs and as the older prohibitionist reps die off and are replaced by free staters as our number and influence increases, we will be ever closer to ending the madness of drug prohibition in our lifetime.

Mr Bitcoin Tours NH Liberty Forum 2023

Did you miss New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2023- the premier liberty conference put on by free staters taking part in the largest migration of folks looking to create a freedom friendly environment somewhere in the world? Mr Bitcoin didn’t miss it and it was a blast. People from all over the US and some even from around the world attended New Hampshire Liberty Forum 2023. Free staters got to meet new movers and greet those working on moving. Mr Bitcoin did a tour of the exhibit hall before crashing a talk on, lets be honest, who remembers on what now. I guess that’s what happens when Mr Bitcoin enters a room!

 
 

http://freedomdecrypted.com/public_html/other-content/mr_bitcoin_tour_of_nh_liberty_forum_2023.mp4

Mr Bitcoin Tours NH Liberty Forum 2023
 
 

There were lots of vendors and exhibitors attending from around New Hampshire including the New Hampshire Independence PAC, Porcupine Real Estate, a bunch of porc vendors like freestate.app (a directory of porcupine businesses) which had a great set of porc-merchandise, ThinkPenguin (a free stater led computer retailer selling GNU/Linux systems that put you back in control), Goldback (not gold-backed, but an actual gold infused bill), a learning resource center (showing off awesome 3d printing tech), and many many others.

A short list of the many well known activists, reps, and leaders attending Liberty Forum in 2023:

Carla Gericke is an author, activist, and attorney. Born in South Africa, she immigrated to the United States in the 1990s after winning a green card in the Diversity Visa Lottery. She became a U.S. citizen in 2000. Gericke practiced law in South Africa, and California, working at Apple Computer, Borland, Logitech, and Scient Corporation. Gericke is President Emeritus of the Free State Project. In 2014, she won a landmark First Circuit Court of Appeals case that affirmed the First Amendment right to film police officers.

Jeremy Kauffman is an American entrepreneur and political activist known for founding and leading LBRY. LBRY is blockchain-based decentralized solution to file-sharing and payments. It’s a potential threat to censorship and a YouTube killing alternative that the SEC has been aiming to kill through civil litigation for the past ~5 years. Jeremy Kauffman also ran for US senate in 2022 with various humorous advertising campaigns such as corruption for the people, war is gay, and other similar slogans. He is a vocal supporter and activist within the Free State Project, a migration movement designed to move 20,000 libertarians to New Hampshire. Jeremy Kaufman is also on the board of the Free State Project.

Ian Freeman Is a leading activist in the greater libertarian migration movement to New Hampshire. He co-hosts the leading nationally syndicated libertarian ran radio show Free Talk Live. Ian Freeman is well known for his activism in New Hampshire and most recently cryptocurrency activism educating people on how peace can be achieved through undermining government fiat currencies and thereby violence around the world. He’s faced off against the governments on numerous occasions, but more recently been targeted by the feds for calling them out on recent atrocities on air. Ian was indirectly targeted through co-host and activist Nobody (formally Rich Paul) in a 2012 FBI led “drug” investigation, in 2016 via a smear campaign and FBI raid intended to allude to heinous crimes despite no charges or evidence, and then again Ian and Free Talk Live’s studio was raided in 2021 over the bastardly crime of selling crypto without a government permission slip (humorously legally according to the lawyers, after 20+ charges were dropped a several convictions are to be appealed).

Jason Sorens In July 2001, Sorens published an essay titled “Announcement: The Free State Project”, in which he proposed the idea of a political migration, where 20,000 libertarians would move to a single low-population state (New Hampshire was selected in 2003) to enable a stronghold for libertarian ideas to gain a foothold. Participants then signed statement of intents declaring that they would move to New Hampshire within five years of the drive reaching 20,000 participants. As of February 3, 2016, 20,000 people had signed this statement of intent—completing the original goal. As of the 2022-2023 term 50 free staters have been elected to the 400-member New Hampshire House of Representatives and each year more and more liberty-activists move strengthening free stater representation. Free staters are those people who moved for the Free State Project, but traditionally not including those who did not sign and those who already lived in the state. Another ~50 or so liberty or liberty-leaning representatives are also represented in the New Hampshire state house.

Mark Warden Mark has nearly 20 years of experience in the real estate industry and markets his business Porcupine Real Estate to free staters looking to move to New Hampshire. Mark not only donates a percent of all his commissions to the Free State Project and other liberty-oriented organizations, but he also is a property owner, investor and landlord with multi-family properties in New Hampshire and he invests in other small, New Hampshire-based businesses. Mark is also a liberty activist, working to bring “Liberty in Our Lifetime” to New Hampshire. Mark is on the board of the Free State Project and was a state representative from 2018-2022.

Matthew Santonastaso Matthew Santonastaso a free stater, state rep, and activist who sponsored House Bill CACR32- a bill that would let the people of New Hampshire vote on and declare independence from the United States and proceed as an independent nation. Matt is also the Political Director for the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance.

Jason Gerhard A man with one of the most inspirational stories. Jason moved to New Hampshire over a decade ago and for his support of tax protesters Ed and Elaine Brown he served over a decade in a federal penitentiary. Upon release Jason moved back to New Hampshire to partake in the Free State Project and in 2022 got elected. Jason is well known for introducing bills that could help protect those in New Hampshire against violent gangs calling themselves the state.

Yury Polozov Yury grew up in Russia and came to the US legally, in search of the American Dream and earned citizenship. Having seen the devastating effects of socialism, Yury is dedicated to vigorously defending economic and civil liberties for all New Hampshire residents.

You can find many more leading activists, representatives, would be representatives, and other speakers at:

https://www.nhlibertyforum.com/speakers

Despite spending a dozen years in federal prison for helping tax freedom advocates Ed and Elaine Brown in 2006, Jason Gerhard is still taking on the evil IRS. Now a NH state representative, Gerhard filed a House Resolution, HR 16 that -if passed- would officially ask the IRS three tough questions:

1. Where is the word “income” defined in the Internal Revenue Code?
2. Where in the Internal Revenue Code is it written that the average American, who does not exercise a federal privilege but simply trades their time for money, is liable to pay the federal income tax?
3. Why have numerous Internal Revenue Service publications, directors, and members of the United States Congress, among others, stated that the income tax is “voluntary”?

Unfortunately, the state house voted 283-60 – full roll call here – to kill the resolution. Thanks though to the sixty reps who voted for it, including Keene’s Jodi Newell. Here’s the full video from the house floor discussion and vote:

Nearly 20% of those voting on HB581 yesterday in the full New Hampshire house session, voted for ending the insane war on drugs ENTIRELY! The bill came out of nowhere, filed by rep Matt Santonastaso with little fanfare or press attention, despite the epic attack on the War on Drugs it represents. The public hearing came-and-went with little support, or opposition.

Yesterday, at the full house session, the bill came up for a vote and reps Santonastaso and Jonah Wheeler made excellent speeches in favor of ending the failed war on drugs, while Terry Roy who positions himself as a incremental drug reformer used fearmongering language to scare the reps into voting to continue the destruction of our neighbors’ lives. They then voted 286-70 to kill the bill.

Here’s a link to the full roll call showing exactly how all the representatives voted. Kudos to the brave 35 Republicans and 35 Democrats who did the right thing. Sadly many “A+” rated “liberty reps” voted to continue the drug war. What were they thinking? Anyone with a “Yes” vote on the roll call voted to kill the bill, so feel free to reach out to them and ask why. You can watch the full hearing here:

We’re not happy about it, but the jury has spoken. I was found guilty of all eight non-violent, victimless charges I faced at trial in December. Though we are going to appeal all eight counts, I have to be sentenced before the appeal can be filed. The prosecution is asking for upwards of 20 years, however no charge has a minimum sentence, so in theory I could receive time served for the 69 days I’ve already done and then some amount of probation or home confinement in lieu of prison. It’s all up to the judge.

If I have had a positive effect on your life, perhaps you’d consider writing a letter to judge Laplante to explain why you think I should remain out of prison. What kind of benefit have I brought you and the community as a whole? Why does putting me behind bars cause more harm than leaving me out in productive society? These are some of the things you may want to focus on in your letter.

While you likely have strong feelings about the FBI, the prosecution, or the jury in this case, none of that will be relevant to the sentencing hearing, so leave out your opinions on the process, please. While I have my critiques of the prosecutors, I’ve said along the way that I was surprised at how fair Joseph Laplante was, so I’m optimistic. He’s been thoughtful, is capable of changing his mind, and played things fairly evenly during the process.

Please address your letter to “The Honorable Joseph Laplante” or “Judge Laplante”. You may want to talk a little about yourself and what you do for a living and what you have done, especially with regard to any military or government work.

You are welcome to send a draft to me via email at ian at freetalklive.com or if you are confident in what you’ve written, send a signed original via snail mail – include your contact info – to:
Ian Freeman
63 Emerald St. #610
Keene, NH 03431

Please don’t delay as we need these well in advance of the April 14th sentencing date. Thank you.

Last week at the state house, liberty activists spoke on various bills in front of the Criminal Justice Committee including:

• HB 581 – would end the entire War on Drugs by striking RSA 318-B completely.
• HB 360 – would end prohibition of possession and apparently also growing and selling of cannabis by anyone over 21.
• HB 328 – would legalize possession of possessing hallucinogens including LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and peyote for people over 21.
• HB 470 – would legalize possession of drug testing equipment.

HB 581 – Finally, after years of compromised legislation trying to slowly scrape away at drug prohibition, one brave state representative, Matt Santonastaso, has put forward a bill that would in one fell swoop, end the entire War on Drugs. Sadly, only Bonnie and I came out to support Rep. Santonastaso and testify in favor of this epic legislation. We need more reps willing to take a risk with their “political capital” and actually put forward principled bills like this. Sure, it has no chance of passing, but the conversation needs to happen, and it needs to keep coming back and growing in its support. We also need bills to do other principled things like end government schooling, abolish the liquor commission, and abolish the state police. Hopefully we’ll see more liberty reps step up to the level of Matt Santonastaso in the coming years. Here is full video of the hearing:

HB 360 – One of several cannabis-related bills in the session this year, HB 360 is probably the best one I’ve seen as it does not contain any provisions to tax or regulate cannabis. It simply removes it from being a prohibited substance, although only for those over 21. It’s overall a great bill and would be awesome if it passed, though another bill that has taxes and regulations has the support of the house minority and majority leaders, so don’t get your hopes up. That said, it’s good to see the ideas discussed. Here’s full video of the hearing:

HB 328 – This straightforward bill creates an exception for people over 21 to be able to possess “hallucinogenic drugs”, which the statute defines as, “psychodysleptic drugs which assert a confusional or disorganizing effect upon mental processes or behavior and mimic acute psychotic disturbances. Exemplary of such drugs are mescaline, peyote, psilocybin and d-lysergic acid diethylamide.” Derek Januszewski of the Pachamama Sanctuary came out to speak the truth about these substances. Here’s full video of the hearing:

HB 470 – Possession of drug testing equipment is currently a crime in New Hampshire, which means people cannot legally have their drugs tested for purity, to ensure they are getting what they think they are buying. Drug testing equipment is harm reduction as it reduces deaths and serious overdoses. Even New Futures, who normally opposes legalization efforts, supported the bill. This is a good bill from the left and should receive the support of the liberty reps. Here’s full video of the hearing:

If you want to help rate pending legislation, please join the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. You do not need to be in New Hampshire to help with this important task.