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Ethereum developer and Wikiscanner creator Virgil Griffith filed a motion last week to dismiss the US government’s allegations of “helping” the North Korean government, documents released last week showed.
Griffith was arrested in November last year after speaking at a conference on North Korean cryptocurrency. Authorities claimed to have violated the “International Emergency Economic Powers Act” by visiting the restricted country and further claimed that Griffith allegedly demonstrated the use of blockchain technology to circumvent economic sanctions.
Ethereum developer fights US allegations
Attorney Brian Klein, who represents Griffith, said US authorities do not “specify any alleged obvious facts” and contain no “allegations of fact”. The motion also considers sharing information (as Griffith did in North Korea) as a legal act, which does not challenge US sanctions.
“Here, the government tries to penalize the word …”
Virgil Griffith, the developer accused of sanctions violations after going to North Korea, is moving to lay off on First Amendment grounds. This is a major challenge for US sanctions enforcement: https: //t.co/hnWAF99D5y
– Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) October 26, 2020
“It appears that the government theory is that by attending and speaking at a blockchain conference in Pyongyang, Mr. Griffith provided ‘services’ because’ he provided the DPRK with valuable information on blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies and participated in discussions on the use of cryptocurrency technologies to evade sanctions and launder money ”, reads the motion.
But the defenders disagree. Klein says Griffith has been talking about matters and listing information already in the public domain – nothing proprietary or protected by law in the United States.
Law:
“Knowing full well that Mr. Griffith at most attended a conference on his own and gave a very general speech based on publicly available information – as he does almost monthly at conferences around the world – the government still chose to accuse him of providing “services” to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“DPRK”). “
The first sanction of its kind
The motion also found that the President of the United States does not have the authority to control the transmission of public information and that there is no “guidance to clarify the definition of services” issued by executive orders or the Office of Foreign Assets Control. (OFAC).
“This is a material flaw because the offense charged is in an area where the legal landscape is far from resolved and more details are needed.”
The motion concluded with the above points: “Because of all these serious and fatal flaws, Mr. Griffith respectfully requests this Court to dismiss the accusation with prejudice.”
The penalty is the first instance of a legal case involving cryptocurrency “services” rendered to a restricted country such as North Korea; the conclusion to which it may set the precedent of how such cases are handled legally in the future.
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