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British cyber-security expert Marcus Hutchins - who has been accused of writing virus code - has lost a legal bid to suppress some evidence prosecutors want to use against him.
The evidence is comments he made in an interview after the FBI arrested him.
He wanted the testimony discounted, claiming he gave it when "intoxicated".
A court ruling issued earlier this week threw out the request saying there was no evidence that he was under the influence of drugs.
FBI agents arrested Mr Hutchins on 2 August 2017 at Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport as he was starting his journey home after attending the Def Con hacker conference. He has been held in the US ever since his arrest.
He faces 10 charges related to malware, or malicious software, including a program called Kronos which is designed to steal banking credentials.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Saturday February 16 2019, @08:00AM
The primary evidence against him appears to be whatever he said to the FBI, either at this interview, or at another interview after initially being arrested. This yet again shows that you should never, ever talk to the FBI. They are not there to "help you clear up a few things", they are there to build a case. Anything you say can and will be used against you - taken out of context as needed.
Worse, in the case of the FBI (or other US federal agencies): they will try to catch you in an error - an innocent misstatement or flaw in your memory will do nicely - and charge you with "lying to a federal officer". Which means that you can never correct a misstatement or error, without opening yourself to this new charge.
Of course, Hutchins is a UK citizen, so he may have well have been unaware of this...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.