The husband and spouse “crypto couple” charged in reference to a $4.5 billion bitcoin heist in 2016 have reached a plea settlement with prosecutors, in keeping with a court docket submitting on Friday.
The couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, are slated to look for a plea listening to in federal district court docket in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 3, in keeping with the court docket submitting.
Particulars of the deal weren’t included within the court docket submitting or docket. Messages left with the defendants’ attorneys weren’t instantly returned and a spokeswoman for the U.S. lawyer’s workplace in DC declined to remark.
Lichtenstein, 35, and Morgan, 33, confronted as much as 25 years in federal jail after they had been first charged with cash laundering and fraud following their arrests in February 2022.
The pair had been busted after investigators discovered $3.6 billion in bitcoin that had been stolen in a hack of the Bitfinex buying and selling platform in 2016 in crypto wallets the couple managed.
On the time of the heist, the bitcoin
BTCUSD
was value $71 million, however had skyrocketed in worth to $4.5 billion on the time of their arrest.
One of many key investigative questions revolves round what function, if any, the couple performed within the preliminary hack. Neither has been charged with perpetrating the hack itself.
The couple’s arrest, coupled with Morgan’s outspoken persona on social media and alter ego as a comedic rapper referred to as Razzlekhan, triggered a media firestorm and despatched shockwaves by Silicon Valley and the world of cryptocurrency obsessives the place they had been recognized.
Acquaintances stated the pair had completed little to disclose that they’d allegedly been sitting atop a bootleg fortune for years, whereas presenting themselves as pretty typical Silicon Valley strivers. However prosecutors stated the couple had been slowly attempting to launder the stolen cash, whereas laying the groundwork to flee to Russia if mandatory.
Lichtenstein has been held with out bail since his arrest. Morgan was launched on $3 million bond and positioned in residence confinement.
Courtroom filings had said the defendants had been engaged in plea discount talks with prosecutors for a lot of the previous yr.
A court docket submitting late final yr revealed that the investigation concerned “categorized national-security data and paperwork,” that required the couple’s attorneys to be given safety clearances to evaluation.