Crypto Six Trial: Full Transcripts + Case Update

by | Jul 9, 2023 | 303 comments

Federal Church Concord

Federal District Church Court

One of the biggest frustrations with the federal court system is the fact that recording hearings in any form is completely forbidden, and has been since 1946. No audio, no video, no photographs can be taken. Only pen/pencil and paper are allowed. We tried to get the judge to provide at least an online/phone audio feed as the federal civil courts had done since COVID. The courtroom is wired for sound and video at least since COVID, but alas, we were not successful in our request.

Free Keene blogger Chris Waid did an amazing job taking and transcribing notes every day and those were posted here, but no one sitting in the audience can capture all that is said. Thankfully, the court does offer an official record, which of course one must pay for. Since I plan to appeal my ridiculous convictions for victimless “crimes” regarding selling bitcoin, we have to have the full transcripts. Now we do and I’m legally able to share them publicly.

To make them easier to search and copy, I’ve put them all through Optical Character Recognition, so you can easily select blocks of text you might want to use for whatever purpose. Certainly there are many ridiculous moments that were hopefully somewhat captured by text, though obviously you don’t have the benefit of the witness’ facial expressions. Hopefully someday cameras will be allowed into federal courts, but for now full transcripts months later are the best we can do.

You can download all the trial transcripts in PDF form here as a ZIP file. It also includes the following index as a TXT file, showing the witnesses called on each day. Each PDF also has its own index up front showing the witnesses and pages on which their direct, cross, and any redirect examinations of them took place. Each day usually has two files, one for morning and one for afternoon. You can click each individually below if you don’t want to download them all at once in the ZIP file. (Depending on your browser, you may need to right click and save as to get the download working.)

Day 1 PM – Opening Statements
Day 2 AM – PROSECUTION – Alexandra Comolli
Day 2 PM – Alexandra Comolli, Theodore Vlahakis
Day 3 AM – Theodore Vlahakis, Kathryn Thibault, Kevin McCusker, Derek Feather
Day 3 PM – Christopher Rietmann, Colleen Fordham
Day 4 AM – Hope Cherry, Bruce Sweet, Pavel Prilotsky
Day 4 PM – Pavel Prilotsky, Renee Spinella
Day 5 AM – Dustin Wong, Nicholas Nathans, James Rossell, Patrick Brown, Harold Jones
Day 5 PM – Harold Jones, Melanie Neighbors, Karla Cino
Day 6 AM – Kendall McBrearty
Day 6 PM – Dannela Varel, Kendall McBrearty
Day 7 AM – Kendall McBrearty, Rebecca Ault, Kate Eyerman, Nancy Triestram
Day 7 PM – Nancy Triestram, Diane Cacace, Thomas Connolly, Colleen Ranahan
Day 8 AM – Renee Spinella
Day 9 AM – DEFENSE – Keith Murphy, Max Santonastaso, Edward Forster, Adam Mosher, Dael Chapman, Carolynn Urbanski, Melinda Cambiar, Ian Freeman
Day 9 PM – Ian Freeman
Day 10 AM – Mohammed Ali, Paul Niwa, Closing Arguments
Day 10 PM – Jury Instructions
Day 11 – Verdict

The latest on the case is both sides are currently arguing over the motion to dismiss that my attorney, Mark Sisti, made during the trial at both the close of prosecution and at the end of the defense. Presuming the judge does not throw out all eight counts, we will move to sentencing that is currently set for August 17th, though there is a good chance that will be delayed yet again. Should you wish to write the judge on my behalf, you can find instructions and an address here.

Meanwhile, my co-defendant Aria DiMezzo is in a federal prison camp in Devens, MA serving an 18-month sentence for the completely victimless paperwork violation of operating a “money transmitting business” without a government permission slip. Sadly, but understandably – it’s scary to face down a dozen charges in front of government-biased juries – she took a plea to the charge despite the statutes not mentioning cryptocurrency in any way and despite the fact that bitcoin is never “transmitted” at all, by the government’s own definition of “transmitting”. Unfortunately one cannot appeal a plea deal under most circumstances, so she’ll have to serve some as-yet-undetermined amount of the 18-month sentence. However, you can help her make the time go faster by writing her letters, sending books, or money for commissary. Instructions are here at AriaDiMezzo.com.

As always, stay tuned here to Free Keene or Free Talk Live for the latest.

Remember Cell 411? You can help bring it back to life.

by | Jul 2, 2023 | 179 comments

If you’re an old-school Cop Block supporter, you surely remember Cell 411. It was a killer app that allowed the user to send GPS-based emergency alerts out to friends and family and also allowed for live streaming video from the scene, among other useful features for police accountability activists.

For instance, a Cop Blocker could be getting pulled over, send an alert to a “cell” including other Cop Blockers in the area, and then others would know the sender’s location and what was happening, and could mobilize to the scene to provide support. Meanwhile, the Cop Blocker who sent the alert could also stream live video from the pullover that his cohorts could watch while they were en route.

The app also had alerts for other categories such as fire, medical emergency, breakdown, and others. The idea being that when something bad is happening in your life, it’s better to have friends respond instead of armed psychopaths who might shoot you, your family, or your dog. In case you’re not already familiar with Cell 411, here’s a video that Cop Block’s co-founder Pete Eyre made showing the app’s various features several years ago:

Unfortunately, after years of useful service, Cell 411 fell into disrepair due to its founder falling on hard times due to some family difficulties. He reached out to me and the Shire Free Church took over the project in 2020, but by that time the software was essentially broken.

The first thing I wanted to do was open source Cell 411’s programming, which we have done. The project’s new head programmer, “Nobody”, is an old-school Cop Blocker and has spent the last few years – minus six months in jail when he was targeted by the feds for selling bitcoin – trying to refactor and improve the code. However, he needs help. It’s more than a one-man project and he’s getting burned out and needs some people with programming experience for Android and iOS who are willing to help make Cell 411 great again.

If you don’t know how to program, you can still help us test the app.

If you’re willing to help, please join our Matrix or Telegram support chats to get connected, and introduce yourself. You can also find our code at our Gitlab here.

Please share this story if you value Cell 411. Thank you.