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Beryllium Sphere (r) [soylentnews.org] writes:

Pascal Reid and Michell Espinoza are Bitcoin traders. According to their lawyers, they have no criminal record.

According to press coverage, the FBI found them, not as the result of an investigation into illegal activity but by going through a directory of Bitcoin traders.

The FBI then sent undercover agents to buy Bitcoins with cash the agents said was dirty. Both men were arrested and hit with money laundering charges. As of April Espinoza was locked up pending trial but Reid was able to post $100,000 bail. They face "up to 25 years", but beware of the words "up to" in press coverage. The actual sentence would likely be completely different.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_25529602/bitcoin-money-laundering-charges-will-test-digital-currency [mercurynews.com]

Their defense is going to be, or at least going to include, an argument that since Bitcoin is not actually money they could not have been engaged in money laundering.

They're in serious trouble. If I remember the numbers right, 97% of Federal defendants plead out rather than risk going to trial, where 3 out of 4 defendants are convicted and sentences are Draconian. UPDATE: In fact, Reid has already copped a plea: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article80421072.html [miamiherald.com] . "Probation" is less benign than it sounds and he now has to face the job market with a conviction on his record. On probation, having a job can be a condition of staying out of prison.

I don't know how Federal probation works, but the director of probation in Bell County Texas "says that if he ever faced a choice between prison and probation, he’d skip working with his own department and instead go to prison." -- http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2016/04/dmn-watchdog-probation-fees-turn-pos.html [blogspot.com]

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