Samourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez said he faces another federal prison transfer after FCI McKean deactivated the drug-treatment program he entered, according to Crypto.news. In a September 24 post on X, Rodriguez said the prison warden informed program participants that he and about 70 other inmates would be moved to facilities where the treatment is still available.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons had not published a separate notice confirming the program’s shutdown at McKean when the report was published, so the transfer details rest on Rodriguez’s account. The Bureau of Prisons did not confirm the earlier transfer descriptions either.
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Key facts
- Rodriguez entered the Residential Drug Abuse Program, or RDAP, because completion can reduce an eligible federal inmate’s sentence; for sentences of 37 months or longer, current BOP policy allows an early-release reduction of up to 12 months.
- He is serving five years after pleading guilty in August 2025 to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, and was sentenced by Judge Denise Cote on November 6, 2025, with three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
- Co-founder William Lonergan Hill received four years; the Justice Department said Samourai transmitted more than $237 million in criminal proceeds, with more than 80,000 BTC, then valued above $2 billion, moving through its services after launch.
- An earlier transfer from FPC Morgantown in West Virginia to McKean began June 10 and took 30 days despite the facilities sitting about a four-hour drive apart.
- The Senate failed to advance H.R. 3633 on September 15, with the cloture motion failing 49–50, a result confirmed by the official roll call.
Court sentence and bureau rules
Rodriguez said he had only recently settled into McKean when word came that the treatment program would stop there. His account says participants now expect reassignment to institutions still offering RDAP. The Bureau of Prisons says placement and transfers can hinge on security classification, bed availability, program needs, medical requirements and other factors; federal law directs the agency to consider housing inmates reasonably close to their primary residences when practicable, but programming needs can override that.
In a September 24 letter published by The Rage, Rodriguez recounted the earlier journey. He said he asked for permission to make the trip himself through a transfer furlough because he had minimum-security status and had self-surrendered, and that officials denied the request without explanation on June 8. During the move he said officers put him in ankle restraints and handcuffs attached to a waist chain before a bus ride to an airport, followed by two flights and a stop at the Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. He described sharing a cell with a man serving a murder sentence and sleeping on part of a foam mattress while part of his body rested on the metal bunk. He called the trip the “absolute worst 30 days” of his life.
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Cointelegraph, which also reported the transfer Wednesday, quoted the same account and said Rodriguez wondered at one point whether the transfer facility contained all the “circles of hell.” Both outlets rely on Rodriguez’s description for the conditions; the Bureau of Prisons has not independently confirmed them.
Developer protections stall in the Senate
The case has run alongside congressional efforts to keep developers of non-custodial software from being treated as financial intermediaries. The final Senate CLARITY Act text released September 14 carried provisions derived from the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act; Senator Cynthia Lummis’s office said the language would shield qualifying developers from money-transmission registration requirements and create a civil safe harbor. Coin Center had urged lawmakers to preserve those protections, arguing software developers who never control customer assets should not automatically be treated as money transmitters.
That effort has ended for now. The Senate did not advance H.R. 3633 on September 15, and the official roll call shows the cloture motion failed 49–50, short of the three-fifths threshold needed to proceed. Republican Senator Susan Collins said the legislation required more study, including questions over community-bank deposits. Democratic senators including Catherine Cortez Masto and Angela Alsobrooks cited unresolved concerns over ethics, illicit-finance enforcement and other provisions. The failed procedural vote left the developer language unenacted, and Rodriguez’s conviction and sentence remain governed by the judgment already entered.
Why it matters
Rodriguez’s case sits at the intersection of two unsettled questions: how much discretion the Bureau of Prisons holds over where an inmate serves time and which programs are available, and whether writing non-custodial crypto software can trigger money-transmission liability. The treatment program is not a side detail for Rodriguez; for him it is the difference between serving the full five years and potentially shaving up to a year off.
The procedural defeat in the Senate means the developer protections debated during his case remain off the books, so the legal exposure that produced his conviction is unchanged for other builders. Crypto.news has also reported that Rodriguez sought public donations after saying legal expenses left him more than $2 million in debt.
What to watch
The immediate question is administrative: the Bureau of Prisons must designate another institution where Rodriguez can continue the treatment program tied to his possible sentence reduction. No destination or transfer date had been publicly disclosed when his September 24 update was published. Meanwhile, the Senate vote leaves the developer language dormant unless lawmakers revive the measure.
Sources: crypto.news, Cointelegraph
