Virgil Griffith, a former Ethereum Foundation developer who was indicted and arrested in January 2020 for attending a cryptocurrency conference in North Korea has filed his defense in court. The case, which is being prosecuted in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York accuses Griffith of teaching North Korean officials to circumvent U.S. sanctions by using cryptocurrencies.
At the time he attended the conference in April 2019, Griffith was the Head of Special Projects at the Ethereum Foundation but was suspended from the position shortly after his arrest.
In a motion to dismiss his indictment filed on Oct 22, defense lawyer Brian Klein contends that Griffith’s appearance at the conference was not a “service” and hence did not violate Treasury Department laws.
"Here, the government seeks to penalize speech…."
Virgil Griffith, the developer indicted for sanctions violations after going to North Korea, is moving to dismiss on First Amendment grounds. This is an important challenge to US sanctions enforcement:https://t.co/hnWAF99D5y
— Jake Chervinsky (@jchervinsky) October 26, 2020
Griffith’s Legal Troubles
According to the indictment, Griffith applied for permission to travel to North Korea to speak at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference on Apr 22 and 23. He was denied this permission but then attended the conference anyway, having traveled to North Korea via China.
The U.S. has no official diplomatic relations with North Korea, and U.S. citizens are not permitted to travel to the country without special permission from the State Department. The indictment further stated that at the conference, Griffith spoke about how to use cryptocurrency to evade U.S. sanctions and circumvent restrictions in the global banking system.
The original Doge! https://t.co/iwrbfsBomU pic.twitter.com/QIfSj4vAfC
— Virgil Griffith | 𝚟𝚒𝚛𝚐𝚒𝚕.𝚎𝚝𝚑 (@virgilgr) October 10, 2019
Griffith was arrested and interviewed by federal agents on Nov 12, 2019, at the Los Angeles International airport on suspicion of violating Executive Order 13722, which prohibits U.S. citizens from exporting services to or carrying out certain transactions with North Korea. He was later released to his parents’ house on a $1 million bond.
The First Amendment Defense
Brian Klein argues that while Griffith did speak at the Pyongyang Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Conference, he in fact gave “a highly general speech based on publicly available information.” This information, the defense argues, is publicly available and is comparable to the sort of information Griffith regularly gave in conferences around the world.
As such Klein argues, it is not possible to classify Griffith’s appearance in Pyongyang as a “service” under the regulations of the Office of Foreign Asset Controls. Klein further argued that under the First Amendment, Griffith’s speech at the conference is classified as “information” and is thus protected.
An excerpt from the defense filing reads:
Mr. Griffith was not paid to attend a conference and go on a tour of the DPRK. Mr. Griffith was not contracted or procured by anyone, provided no technical advice, and did not act as a consultant. Mr. Griffith’s alleged conduct was neither as specific nor as tailored to a client’s need as to constitute “services.” In short, a general conference speech is simply not the type of conduct that falls within the definition of “services” under the relevant regulations of the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Controls (“OFAC”).
The case remains under consideration at the SDNY District Court and BeInCrypto will provide more updates as they become available.
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