Roger Keith Ver, the man dubbed Bitcoin Jesus because he made a fortune as an early advocate of the digital currency, is fighting extradition to the United States where he faces charges of mail fraud, tax evasion, and filing false tax return charges.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) last May unsealed a June 2023 indictment detailing the alleged tax crimes after Ver was he was arrested in Mallorca, Spain. He has since been released on bail.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials have been trying to get Ver back into the country to face the charges, which include evading more than $48 million in taxes due from profits made by selling $240 million in crypto tokens.
If convicted, Ver could face the possibility of have to pay back that alleged tax due, as well as face a maximum prison sentence of 109 years.
So, it’s no surprise that Ver is doing all he can to fight the charges, starting with an effort to not even face them.
Business and crypto media this week reported that Ver last month filed a motion with the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, to avoid being sent to Los Angeles to face trial.
Crypto law confusion cited in filing: Ver’s attorneys argue that Spain violated his legal protections when it ruled that he should be sent to the United States to face the tax charges. They call the Spanish extradition order a “clear denial of justice” and a breach of international extradition protocols.
They also contend that Spanish authorities failed to consider the “legal uncertainty and insecurity” surrounding U.S. tax policy on crypto assets during the time which American tax officials say Ver violated the law.
The European Court of Human Rights confirmed receipt of the complaint, saying only it is currently under review. Neither Spanish officials or the U.S. Department of Justice has commented on this latest development in the ongoing case.
Back here in the United States, Ver’s lawyers also have focused on crypto laws at the time of their client’s alleged wrongdoing. They say Ver “should have never been indicted criminally,” pointing out that the crypto industry was still “completely in flux” in 2017 regarding token valuations and tax implications.
They also note that Ver had sought advice from U.S. tax professionals before selling his bitcoin and acted based on that guidance. That shows, they argue, that there was no intent to defraud.
We’ll see if those arguments are persuasive in a U.S. court, if the case ever comes to trial here.
Tax Felon Friday: You can read more on the charges against Ver in my post ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ accused of $48 million in tax evasion related to the crypto currency.
You also can read more about his extradition fight in articles from Trading View, Coindoo, CoinTelegraph, and Decrypt.
And if you want to catch up on all sorts of tax miscreants, from those just charged and/or indicted to those convicted and/or confessed and sentenced, the ol’ blogs’ special Tax Felon Friday page is a good place to start.
You also can find more tax crime posts, notably those that were published long before I started collecting them in a special end-of-week feature, you can peruse, what else, the tax crimes category. You’ll find this post at the top of that collection right now, so just scroll down for more.
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