Booking photos for Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein.
Courtesy: Alexandria Adult Detention Center.
A federal judge in Washington, D.C., reset the times for Thursday’s plea hearings of the “Crypto Couple” accused of attempting to launder $4.5 billion in stolen bitcoin in anticipation of a scheduled appearance in the identical courthouse later within the day by former President Donald Trump, on a recent criminal indictment.
The order got here after people had already begun lining up outside the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, within the hope of getting a seat at Trump’s arraignment.
Trump was charged Tuesday on 4 felony counts related to his efforts to overturn his loss within the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
The previous president was summoned to look in U.S. District Court in Washington at 4 p.m. ET Thursday before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya. The Department of Justice expects him to be there in person.
The bitcoin couple, Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekahn” Rhiannon Morgan, were already attributable to appear in the identical court on the identical day for separate plea hearings at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. respectively. Court filings last month suggested that they are going to plead guilty at those hearings.
But on Wednesday, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly moved Lichtenstein’s hearing to 9:30 a.m. and his wife Morgan’s hearing to 11 a.m. Thursday.
The judge’s order said the rescheduling was “attributable to exigent circumstances.”
People lined up outside E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday, Aug. 2, 2023, for planned arraignment of Donald Trump.
Ryan Reilly | NBC News
Lichtenstein and Morgan were arrested in February 2022 on a criminal grievance, accused of attempting to launder 119,754 bitcoin stolen within the 2016 hack of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex. That they had pleaded not guilty to the fees in that grievance of cash laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud america.
Last month, prosecutors filed a recent charging document against the couple, with the identical criminal counts. That document, referred to as an information, is routinely utilized by prosecutors when defendants have agreed to plead guilty.
Morgan is free on a $3 million bond while Lichtenstein, a Russian emigré, has been held in jail since his arrest without bail after being ruled a flight risk.
