In December 2022, Freeman was convicted by a jury in a U.S. District Court in New Hampshire of four types of offenses: (1) failing to register with the federal government as a Bitcoin seller and conspiring to not register with the feds as a Bitcoin seller; (2) income-tax evasion; (3) money-laundering; and (4) conspiracy to launder money.

After a verdict of guilty on all the charges, the U.S. District Judge entered what is called a judgment of acquittal notwithstanding the verdict on the money-laundering count. He entered that ruling based on the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever to justify the jury's finding of guilt on that issue. Thus, that left the other  convictions relating to registration, tax evasion, and conspiracy to launder money.

On October 2, 2023, Freeman was sentenced to 8 years in prison on the most important count — the conspiracy-to-launder-money count — and five years each on the registration counts and the tax-evasion counts. All the sentences were ordered to run concurrently — i.e., at the same time. The District Judge denied bail pending the outcome of an appeal and ordered Freeman to be taken into custody. He has been imprisoned ever since. However, he appealed his convictions to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. That's what the oral arguments were about last Wednesday.

Last July, I wrote a series of articles analyzing these convictions:

The Unjust Conviction of an Innocent Man: The Ian Freeman Case, Part 1
The Unjust Conviction of an Innocent Man: The Ian Freeman Case, Part 2
The Unjust Conviction of an Innocent Man: The Ian Freeman Case, Part 3
How I Came to Investigate the Ian Freeman Case

In those articles, I stated my conviction that the 44-year-old Freeman is an innocent man — yes, a totally innocent man, a man who today is unjustly serving an 8-year sentence in a federal prison camp.

The oral arguments

I attended the oral arguments in the First Circuit Court of Appeals last week in Boston. Also in attendance were around 15 friends and supporters of Freeman as well as his wife Bonnie.