MOSCOW, August 31 (RIA Novosti) – The former Vice Chairmen of the Bitcoin Foundation, Charlie Sherm, will plead guilty in US court to the charge of unlicensed money transmission, his lawyer announced Friday according to Reuters.
“So, this is a first step of many, but I’m happy to not be going to trial, and moving forward” said Sherm in an interview with Coindesk.
The plea deal brings closure to a seven month ordeal for Sherm after the US government arrested him for plotting to “sell and launder over $1 million in bitcoins” to users of the Silk Road marketplace according to documents filed by the prosecutor. If he had been convicted of the more serious offences, Sherm could have faced up to 30 years in prison. His plea deal will not guarantee that he won’t serve prison time, however, that he will not have to face the stricter charges greatly improves his chances.
The Silk Road, an online marketplace for illicit drugs, was shut down by authorities last year, however, a new site with the same name appeared not soon after.
Sherm has continued to develop his bitcoin business in the several months since his arrest, developing the payment company Payza. He told Coindesk that
“Right now I’m busy with Payza. We’re doing tons of volume with our first rollout and we have many plans. Payza will be the first merchant processor to offer both credit card AND bitcoin processing.” Authorities did not prevent him from working with the virtual currency while the trial was ongoing.
Sherm was arrested on 27 January at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport after he attended a bitcoin conference in Amsterdam. He soon resigned from his position as Vice-Chairmen of the Bitcoin Foundation.
Sherm and his partner, Robert Faiella, were the creators of Bitinstant, an anonymous bitcoin exchange run from December 2011 to October 2013. The US government asserts that “The company was designed to enable customers to exchange cash for bitcoins anonymously, that is, without providing any personal identifying information, and it charged a fee for its service. Faiella obtained bitcoins with the company’s assistance, and then sold the bitcoins to Silk Road users at a markup.”
Faiella is set to go to trial on Sept 22. He has not yet announced whether he will go to trial.
