Sovereignty on Trial: When the State Punishes Privacy and Calls It Justice
The Samourai Wallet Prosecution and the Limits of Civil Authority Under Christ
In April 2024, the founders of Samourai Wallet, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, were arrested and charged by the United States Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York. The prosecution occurred under the authority of the Biden administration’s Justice Department and reflected its stated enforcement priorities regarding cryptocurrency, financial surveillance, and anti-money-laundering regulation.
The government charged Rodriguez and Hill with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. The theory of the case was that Samourai Wallet, a Bitcoin privacy tool, facilitated illicit transactions by allowing users to obscure transaction histories.
In July 2025, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill entered guilty pleas to a single count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business under federal statute. As part of the plea agreement, the government dropped the more severe conspiracy to commit money laundering charge. Sentencing occurred in November 2025, with Rodriguez receiving a sixty-month sentence and Hill receiving forty-eight months.
Keonne Rodriguez is scheduled to surrender to federal custody on December 19, 2025. William Lonergan Hill is scheduled to report to prison on January 2, 2026.
The prosecution was led by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, specifically the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit and the Illicit Finance and Money Laundering Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew K. Chan, David R. Felton, and Cecilia Vogel handled the case. Public announcements were issued under authority attributed to Nicolas Roos, acting for the United States under 28 U.S.C. § 515.
The investigation involved coordination with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division, led in New York by Harry T. Chavis, Jr., and the FBI New York Field Office, under Christopher G. Raia. International cooperation included Europol and foreign law enforcement agencies.
U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote presided over sentencing proceedings.
These facts are not disputed. The question is how they should be understood.
Defining the Core Issue
This case is not fundamentally about cryptocurrency enthusiasm, criminal sympathy, or technological novelty. It is about whether the state may treat privacy itself as criminal, punish the creation of lawful tools, and collapse knowledge into guilt.
Samourai Wallet did not transact funds. It did not take custody of user assets. It provided software that users could employ, lawfully or unlawfully, according to their own intent. The state’s theory expanded liability beyond direct action and into association, awareness, and refusal to build surveillance into a product.
The issue is sovereignty. Who defines justice. Who sets limits. Who answers to whom.
Government Authority Under God
Scripture teaches that civil authority is real, delegated, and limited. Magistrates are servants of God, not autonomous moral legislators.
“For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”
Romans 13:1
Authority exists to punish evil and reward good according to God’s standard, not to invent crimes where Scripture grants liberty. When rulers exceed their mandate, Scripture recognizes a higher obedience.
“We must obey God rather than men.”
Acts 5:29
Psalm 2 warns rulers directly. Kings are commanded to serve the Lord with fear, not to assert independence from His law. Civil authority that punishes righteousness and protects injustice stands under judgment now, not merely later.
Legal Guilt and Moral Guilt
Rodriguez and Hill pled guilty under federal statute. That establishes legal guilt within the American system. It does not establish moral guilt before God.
Scripture distinguishes between coerced compliance and righteousness. Unjust systems have always extracted confessions without producing justice. Biblical history is filled with courts that functioned lawfully according to human codes while violating divine law.
The prophets condemned such courts repeatedly.
“Woe to those who enact evil statutes and to those who constantly record unjust decisions.”
Isaiah 10:1
A plea agreement reflects power dynamics. It does not resolve moral truth.
Naming the Injustice
After the facts are established, the injustice becomes visible.
The state expanded the definition of money transmission beyond clear statutory language. It punished knowledge rather than action. It treated a tool as a crime. It collapsed intent into liability.
This prosecution did not rest on direct theft, fraud, or violence. It rested on refusal to comply with a surveillance regime that Scripture does not authorize.
The officials who advanced this theory acted as if regulatory interpretation carries the force of moral law. That assumption is false.
Privacy and Biblical Justice
Scripture never treats privacy as sin. It treats unjust rulers who spy, steal, and exploit as criminals.
“The wicked accepts a bribe in secret to pervert the ways of justice.”
Proverbs 17:23
God condemns false weights, dishonest scales, and rulers who enrich themselves through control and deception. Total transparency to the state is not a biblical virtue. Stewardship belongs first to God, then to household authority.
A system that criminalizes privacy inevitably centralizes power and weakens households. Scripture consistently opposes that pattern.
The Church’s Obligation to Speak
Silence places a man on a side whether he admits it or not.
Christians are commanded to speak truth about justice, authority, and law. The church has historically resisted overreach, whether Roman, medieval, or modern. The Reformation itself was born from refusal to submit conscience to unlawful authority.
The American church increasingly confuses compliance with faithfulness. That confusion is sin.
A Warning to the Church
Statism has discipled many believers more thoroughly than Scripture. Fear of controversy has replaced fear of God. Economics, sovereignty, and governance are treated as secular territory.
This case exposes that error. A state willing to criminalize privacy will not stop at technology. It will reach households, churches, and pulpits.
A Call to Action
Rulers are commanded to repent. Magistrates are summoned by Christ to submit their authority to His law.
Christians are commanded to discern, resist injustice, and speak publicly. Rights must be defended, but righteousness must be advanced. The church must raise men who will not lie for approval and households that fear God more than regulators.
Prayer is required. Witness is required. Silence is disobedience.
Accountability Before the King
Christ reigns now. Governments answer now. No administration escapes His scrutiny. No court renders final judgment.
“Now therefore, O kings, show insight; take warning, O judges of the earth.”
Psalm 2:10
When the state punishes privacy and calls it justice, Scripture calls it rebellion. Christ will judge it. His kingdom will outlast it.
For readers who wish to assist with legal costs and/or read more related to this case, a fundraising page is available here: https://billandkeonne.org/
Supporting legal defense does not require agreement with every decision made by the defendants, but it does recognize the danger of criminalizing privacy under expanding state power.