Originally published at: Day 3 Of The Crypto6 Trial: Another Victim Of The Court: Mr Bitcoin Gets Denied | Free Keene
Crypto6 Trial Day 3
We had a turnout of ~15 supporters throughout the day. Not bad~ given we’ve got 10-14+ days of trial here. We’re up to maybe ~55 folks who have come out and supported (some may be on multiple days) so far. I want to say thank you to all those who have taken time off work (even if only for half a day) to come out and support Ian & the crypto6. A supportive community is one of the things that make living in New Hampshire like nowhere else.
One of the best parts of the day was when Mr Bitcoin entertained us in the morning by trying to enter the courthouse!
Here is the video:
Here is a summary of the days goings on:
Prosecutor continues asking questions of the last witness from the prior day’s trial.
FinCEN employee Theodore Valahakis
Q Shire Cryptocoin operation directed at kiosk?
A Yes
Q Why was the letter sent?
A General campaign
It was to identify non-compliant businesses
The letter is not itself the registration requirement, and so a business must register whether or not they get a letter
Defense cross examination:
Q Jury should not assume Ian Freeman was placed on any notice by the federal government?
A Correct
Prosecutor introduces new witness to stand
Name: Kathren Chevo
FBI agent
24 years with FBI
Prior experience: state trooper Maryland
Role: Supervisor
Based out of Knoxville, TN
Does polygraph work
Prior worked in Bedford NH
Worked on: Child exploitation & white collar crime, example: bank fraud, money laundering, and romance scams
Romance scams usually target people through social media where scammers befriend people and then deplete the persons of all their money claiming they need funds and the scams usually focus on elderly victims.
Ways scammers send money: Master card / Visa cards
-Cash transactions
-Wire money
-Personal checks
-Bitcoin
Money mule: a person who moves assets from those they don’t know for obstruction from other persons
Scammer grooms person to become mule
Then the mule moves money to another account
Hard to ID where everything is ending up
Q Part of Ian Freeman investigation?
A Yes
2017
Lead case agent till 2020
Did lots of interviews
Chats were not available while working on case
Ian Freeman’s PC was not available
I interviewed with people doing wire transfers for Mr Freeman
I based investigation on suspicious activity report
Q how many SARs did you review?
A More than 100
I did not interview 100 though
I focused on New Hampshire with only a few
Q Did you have another source of info?
A Yes, local police
Q Where were the victims located?
A All over the country
Q What was the average age?
A Over 65
Q Did the investigation involve banks?
A Yes
Q Another part of case?
[hmm she sounds coached]
A Kiosks
Q How did you find these Kiosks?
A Through online site coinmaps
Then I bought bitcoin at kiosks
Q Why?
A To see what was required to buy from kiosk and to see what wallet the coins came from
Q Was this your money?
A No, it was government money
Q Where were the machines?
A Murphy’s taproom, 101 local goods
They asked how much to buy and then scan for QR codes on phone containing wallet addresses
Then you feed the bills in and it sends bitcoin to your wallet
Q How long does it take?
A No very
Q Did it require a name?
A No
Q Did it require a drivers license?
A No
Q Did it require a photo?
A No
Q Did it require a phone #?
A No
Q Did you buy at a machine not owned by Ian Freeman?
A Yes, and it required a state ID, no prepaid phone # was allowed, and the owner communicated with the buyer
Q Was finger print scanner required on Ian Freeman’s machine?
A Not to my knowledge
Crypto vend rules:
1. Must use own wallet
2. Crypto is your responsibility to keep safe
3. All sales final
4. Do not tell our staff why you are buying bitcoin
Q Is that what you experienced?
A Yes
Q “If you believe something went wrong please contact us at”…
Witness identifies email in letter from FinCEN matches letter on machine
[note this is evidence displayed on a screen]
name on email of vending machine matches email sent by ian to free giveaway price winner
Phone # matches rules sign and localbitcoin data old phone #
[again evidence displayed on a screen]
I obtained a warrant for search of Ian Freeman’s residence based on this
The house is a duplex
73 is right hand side
73 is where Ian Freeman lives
75 is on left hand side is where Mr Nobody lives
Q Please describe it
A White structure, green, white
Special agent tivo
Q Were you able to ID a video from internet related to front porch?
A Yes
Q Where?
A On Odysee
Q Interview occurred after?
A yes
Q Did you watch clip of video?
A Yes
Q Did the full video have audio?
A Yes
Q Was freeman speaking?
A Yes
Q What is it?
A It’s a stop sign
It says stop and then “paying taxes”
[this has been on the porch as long as I’ve lived in New Hampshire since pre-2016 and numerous people have lived and rented here, this doesn’t actually tell you ANYTHING, but it is intended to bias the jury against the defense… in practice the Shire Free Church does pay taxes or the property would have been seized long ago]
Q What was on 75 side?
A Living room with kitchen upstairs
Q Any shrine?
A No
Q Any chapel?
A No
Q Any meeting rooms?
A No
Q Were others living at 73 side?
A Yes
It was a mirror image of other side, but living room was a radio station
[this is wrong, it’s got recording equipment for a radio show, radio stations require big antennas and all sorts of stuff you’d not find at this address]
Q Any shrine?
A No
Q Any chapel?
A No
Q Any meeting rooms?
A No
The prosecutor brings up a picture of the radio studio as evidence
On left is radio equipment, chair, documents
Desk is behind chair
Q What is procedure of search?
A Take pictures of house is necessary before conducting search
Then take picture when everything of interest is found
Everyone volunteered to help with search
[something tells me this was a paid gig, but on the other hand 365 days of criticizing the feds on Free Talk Live is probably is incentive enough, not that I’m unsure about them being paid]
If anyone has a question they ask me if we should take it
Photo shows folder and the folder has “FBI Crypto” on it
Another has “IRS Bullshit” on it
[this is weird, all it could do is bias a jury against a defense and has no value other than to show Ian Freeman dislikes the government, it doesn’t reveal if he paid taxes, but it suggests he was at least doing something in regard to government demands, certainly that isn’t what the government was trying to do with the photo though]
[humorously the photo also shows shire society and signers on it, a rosary, and peace signs hanging on the wall related to the church that is “fake”, but no one mentions these]
Defense cross examines witness
SAR report interviews Renee Spinella & Andrew Spinella
Q Did you link a scammer with Ian Freeman?
A No
Q Don’t scammers often team up with money launders?
A I don’t know
Q Did you know Ian Freeman required ID?
A I didn’t know that
Q How many devices did you try in state that weren’t Ian Freemans?
A Don’t know
Q How many require ID in the state?
A I don’t know
Q How many machines did you look at?
A I only compared Ian Freemans 6 and 1 other non-Ian Freeman machine
I looked on YouTube for how machines worked
[she has no idea how many if any require a fingerprint/ID]
Q You shouldn’t draw generalizations from 1 machine, right?
A I can’t tell you what to do
Q Do you know how long machine was at Murphy’s Taproom?
A No
Q Know of any complaints?
A No
Did not ask owner of bar about issues or complaints
It was not part of my investigation
“Don’t talk to staff sign” is shown
Q Have you seen signs like that before?
A No
Q But only looked at one other machine, right?
A Correct
Q Part of process to buy crypto was to agree to it, right?
A Not really
[apparently terms don’t matter if you don’t have to click an I agree button … so much for the internet full of privacy policies and other terms of service]
Q Sign though says that right?
A Yes
Q Are you able to verify FinCEN letter ever got to email?
A No
Q You were at the search in Keene on site agent?
A Yes
Q Was this a violent search?
A “officer safety”
Q Ian Freeman was non-violent?
A Yea
We know he was not violent
But but “lots of people had weapons”
And and were “coming and going”
Q Were people displaying weapons day of search?
A No
We had several months of footage from cameras focused on the house
Q You were spying on completely innocent people?
A We were checking people
Q Would you have checked my license if I had been there?
A Yes
Q Why was the specific day of search selected?
A Lots of people involved, coordination
Q Asked about shrine, does that mean a building can’t be used as a church?
A Well not that I would recognize
Q Is there something specific that makes it a church?
A No
[wow- so umm it could be a church then????]
Q You heard of radio ministries right?
A Yes
Q Ian filed a form for religious purposes?
A Yes, but it had a PO Box on it
[this is wrong, it had a mailing address similar to a PO box though]
Q How long did the search take?
A The whole day
Q How did you search?
A Used a swat team
“gave opportunity to leave on own”
“they did not exit on own”
Q What time was the search taking place?
A 6AM it was, dark out
Q People are generally still asleep at that hour right?
A Yes
Q Before searching did you do due diligence and know who was coming and going? Did you do a criminal background check on residents?
A On some
Q No record and has right to carry?
A Ian freeman had no felonies
Q Did he have firearm?
A No
Q Matt roach?
A no felonies either
Nobody had criminal record
Q You know who would be there right?
A No
[At 6am??? If this was a 6PM raid, ok, but after 5 year investigation they know exactly who is home at 6AM, maybe she is a liar, or just incompetent, but either way I sure hope this came off right to the jury as one or the other or both]
Q Does the Freeman house have security cameras with the ability to video record?
A Yes
Q Did you know agents tried to destroy his cameras?
A I know they attempted to disable
[they showed video of them intentionally damaging the cameras, not disabling them]
Q What is a bearcat?
A It’s an armored vehicle used by police for tactical purposes
[yea, sourced from the military and designed for the military no thanks to government programs]
Q Is that what is in the video?
A Yes
Q How many people from swat team were there?
A I don’t know
[there were 56 FBI agents there according to the prosecutor from one of the very first hearings]
They play a video of explosives being thrown at window
Q What were tact team equipped with?
A Shields…
Q Looks like automatic weapon, no?
A Yes
[conveniently failing to mention the most obvious stuff from the video]
Q How many agents? 6?
A Yes
Q What did agent rip down?
A That was for officer safety!
I don’t know what that was
[they ripped down a peace sign, but she conveniently won’t admit what it was.. seems to be a pattern here of the government agents not recognizing stuff indicative of a ministry]
Q Any indication that there was any verbal resistance?
A I don’t know
Q Any reports of threats?
A Not that I know of
Video of Mr Nobody is played for court
Q Any firearms or weapons?
A It does not appear in that frame
[what about the other frames??]
Video of Matt coming out of house is played for court
Q What is Matt Roach’s attire?
A He is in a t-shirt and has no shoes on
Q Any resistance from Matt?
A No
Video of Ian coming out is played for court
Q What is Ian Freeman’s attire?
A Sweatshirt
Q Who is with him?
A Dog
[I guess Ian Freeman wasn’t about to let them shoot the dog, he’s holding him in the video as he comes out, certainly to protect him from the police as they like to shoot dogs]
Video of Bonnie coming out is played for court
Q The one you weren’t sure was there?
A Yea
[this women interrogated Bonnie and lied about it on the stand for some reason or other]
Q Does she have anything on feet?
A I can’t see in this frame
[how convenient, she’s avoiding answering the question, Bonnie was barefoot and made to put on shoes with glass in them]
Q Any indication of resistance?
A No
They play a video of an agent attempting to and actually destroying a camera with what was I believe an automatic firearm
Q What is agent doing?
A Disabling camera
Q Is this standard procedure?
A I’m not on swat team so I wouldn’t know
Q Might be that they didn’t want to see people like a jury seeing them do bad stuff?
A We are professionals!
[she acts all shocked!]
[ room laughs hysterically given we’ve all just watched video of them behave unprofessionally and then lie about it, the judge however erupts in anger at the courtroom because of automatic reactions people have when other people say absolutely batshit crazy stuff, at least some of this video including the FBI destroying the camera is posted publicly and available at TheCrypto6.com or on odysee directly at https://odysee.com/$/embed/FBI-Raids-FTL-2021/beccf363b14222723dde8bad26f18c4ed3a0136b?r=uzeVx1wy6w7bXhFWKiHNnHAiQvPfC7kA ]
Q What is that?
A Bearcat with battering ram
Q People already came out right?
A I wouldn’t know. I don’t know if this was cut.
[I’m not certain if this video is all at TheCrypto6.com, but it probably is and you can tell the order of stuff happening based on the time stamps on the video]
Prosecution now cross cross examines the witness
Q Was this the only search?
A No
Several other sites in state were searched
Q Did any others have swat teams?
A No
[this is interesting given that I’m 99.999% sure that other searches involved folks who owned firearms also which means “officer safety” was nothing more than an excuse to target the person they were really wanting to hurt, ie because Ian Freeman is behind Free Talk Live and Ian Freeman’s show has people on criticizing not just the government but the FBI, IRS, Treasury, and every other government agencies every night for 3 hours 365 days a a year on around 200 radio stations and then other outlets as well ]
Q Why swat this location?
A High power rifles and a full size sword
[what she is calling a sword was Mr Nobody’s gardening tool]
Q Was anyone hurt in this event?
A No
[this is actually incorrect, the victims that the feds were targeting were injured by the feds blowing in of a window and Bonnie or Ian’s girlfriend, now wife received aid after release from federal detainment, and the primary one injured was not involved in cryptocurrency sales or the reason for which they were raiding and no charges or accusations have ever been made about Bonnie during this investigation]
Q Where was the call out?
A It happened
[keep in mind they played the video which showed the FBI pulling up to the house and at no time did they call out unless a flash bang grenade is now what constitutes calling out]
“They just didn’t cooperate”
[it’s a few minutes after 6am so even if they had called out it’s unlikely anyone would have heard it given they were asleep, but I was not and fortunate enough to have good instincts and some forewarning and arrived before anyone inside new the feds were outside about to bust in, and I watched and filmed the whole raid from across the street, and then a block away and can attest to the fact that no “call out” occurred as was required by the warrant given it wasn’t a no-knock issued warrant]
Q Time?
A 6AM
Q Once the residence was secured what happens?
A Swat then leaves
Q What were you wearing?
A Cargo pants traditional pants
[I think what he was trying to demonstrate was just how cold it was outside and what outrageous conditions they made the victims of the raid suffer through, remember one person had no shoes on! It was something in the negatives, I want to say -20 below, but even if it was only freezing it was COLD and people were made to wait outside for a bit]
Q How far is Matt’s bedroom from Ian’s bedroom?
A Not far
A picture of matts room is shown to the court
Q You know what was found in matts room?
A Weapons, firearms
Q Do you see a bunch of weapons?
A Yes
Defense cross examines witness
Q You knew of Matt Roach before the search right?
A Yes
Q You knew he had no criminal record, right?
A Yes
Q You know he had a completely separate room right?
A Yes
Q There was a call out right?
A Yes
Q Do you know that dust or flakes are occurring in the video?
A I don’t know
[it’s a video that clearly shows a flash bang grenade of some kind being thrown at the house and going off]
Q Do you know if a flash bang grenade is a call out?
A No
[is she seriously suggesting she does not know if a flash bang grenade is a call out? If this doesn’t destroy her credibility with the jury there is no hope for a win at this trial]
Day 3 isn’t over… more to come! I will update this post this weekend so stay tuned for more of day 3.