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Virgil Griffith, the former Ethereum Foundation researcher accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, filed a motion Thursday to dismiss the charge against him on the grounds that district prosecutors Southern New York did not properly declare Griffith’s crime.
Griffith, 37, was arrested by FBI agents on November 28, 2019 following a presentation at a conference in North Korea in April.
Prosecutors say Griffith rendered services to the North Korean government at the conference in the form of “valuable information” that he provided to DPRK officials and that he “participated in conversations” on how to use blockchain technology to avoid sanctions.
Griffith, meanwhile, argues that his presentation was a “very general speech based on publicly available information”.
Thursday’s motion to dismiss the indictment now hinges on whether the planning and presentation of this presentation can be interpreted as a conspiracy to violate sanctions.
In the motion, Griffith argues that because he was not paid for his presence and was not under contract as a consultant, he was not providing a “service” to the DPRK and that his speech is protected by the United States government’s ban under the First. Amendment.
Furthermore, Griffith argues that his presentation explicitly falls under an exemption in the International Emergency Economic Powers Act for sharing “information” and “information material”.
The motion added:
“If the speech Mr. Griffith allegedly made is not ‘information’, then nothing is.”
As Cointelegraph previously reported, Griffith’s case has divided the crypto community.
In December, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin defended Griffith, saying:
“I don’t think what Virgil did gave North Korea any kind of real help in doing anything bad. He gave a presentation based on publicly available information on open source software. There was no weird “advanced mentoring” of hackery. […] Virgil took no personal advantage of the trip. […] I hope in the USA […] it focuses on the genuine and harmful corruption that it and all countries struggle with rather than chasing programmers who give speeches. “
