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Virgil Griffith, the Ethereum developer has been put behind the bars. The Judge has cancelled his bail as he had violated the conditions of bail. It is expected that he will be jailed for a term of 20 years.
Ethereum developer Virgil Griffith has been sentenced to a jail term for violating all the norms of the court. He was out on bail on a condition put on by the U.S. District Judge.
He was out on bail and he had violated the terms of his bail. He was taken into custody after he allegedly accessed his cryptocurrency account. The remand order came from Judge P. Kevin Castel after Griffith reportedly accessed Ethereum assets held by Coinbase in May.
The Ethereum foundation researcher is likely to spend the next two months behind bars. He is scheduled to be tried on 21 September on charges of conspiracy to violate sanctions with North Korea and faces a jail term of up to 20 years.
As per Law 360, the main concern of Judge Castel was flight risk since Griffith’s assets value has jumped to a range of $1 million. This might have influenced his decision to check his wallet, as per the judge.
Violation of bail term
Prosecutor has maintained to remand him on July 9. They claimed that he had violated the bail term that restricted his internet use. He had contacted the exchange by using Coinbase to request the removal of account security functions stating that I am going to need the two-factor authentication removed as the FBI took my devices.
According to the Defense lawyer, Griffith took this action after consulting his counsel. He claimed that it was his family in Alabama that attempted on his behalf.
Griffith was arrested in November 2019 and was indicted and charged on Jan 7, 2020. He was arrested for violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. He was granted bail on a bond order for $1 million in December 2019. He was denied bail earlier.
The background
As per the Federal Authorities, he has helped North Korea to launder money using cryptocurrency to avoid U.S. sanctions after he attended a blockchain conference in Pyongyang in April 2019.
In 2020, Griffith filed a motion to dismiss the conspiracy charges. He claimed that his conference held in April 2019 consisted of presentations, widely available public information, therefore he was not giving services to North Korean Officials. The lawyers had said these arguments were absurd.
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.
