Please sign the petition HERE and also the petition HERE for Ian's friend Roger Ver who is also facing criminal charges over his bitcoin. We would like to see all the government's bitcoin hostages freed, those with pending charges dropped, and those with convictions pardoned. If you have any connections to President Trump and can help facilitate putting these cases in front of him, please email ian@freetalklive.com with details. Thank you.

The government alleged that because Ian was openly stating that he respected his buyers' privacy, that this was an invitation to scam artists. Further, they alleged that there were certain "red flags" that should have alerted Ian that a scam was happening. According to the prosecutors, a buyer using poor english in online messages or being elderly were "red flags" and that Ian should have known these were scams, therefore they said he was guilty of "conspiracy" by way of "willful blindness". The jury convicted him of this count despite the fact that the jury instructions stated that "mere negligence, recklessness, or mistake are not sufficient" to find someone willfully blind. People type lazily on the internet all the time and there are absolutely elderly people who are interested in buying bitcoin. In fact, according to the government's own numbers, it's people between 30-39 who are most likely to fall victim to romance scams. Every one of the scammers' victims passed Ian's rigorous screening that even included a phone call to verify they were really consenting to buying the bitcoins. Apparently the jury did not care. It's possible they did not understand the jury instructions or simply wanted to punish someone for what happened to the scam victims and engaged in what could be called "reverse jury nullification", where despite the lack of evidence, the jury convicts anyway.

That's certainly the government's claim, but they have never passed any kind of bitcoin statutes. The government's case against Freeman for "Money Transmission Without a License" turned on the court system's claim that the word "funds" in the money transmission statutes includes bitcoin. This is simply the opinion of federal judges. The statute itself has no definition for "funds". Many other LocalBitcoins sellers never went to trial on this, instead taking a plea deal. In his appeal, Freeman's lawyers argue that the government and FINCEN even admit that "funds" does not cover bitcoin, as in 2021 they updated the statute text to include "value that substitutes for currency". Though this still does not specify crypto, bitcoin, or virtual currency, one could argue that maybe stablecoins meet that definition. However, juries are not experts on the law, so they found Freeman guilty on the "Money Transmission" counts. Further, as argued in the appeal, Freeman's attorneys point out that the "major questions" doctrine also applies here, in that the congress could not have forseen the creation of bitcoin and the one single word "funds" could not possibly have been intended to regulate an entire multi-trillion dollar industry. If congress intends to regulate bitcoin and crypto, they need to pass a law, which they have yet to do.

Freeman had given all his wealth to the Church and the Church already had significant bitcoin wealth at the time it started bitcoin sales. This was a mission to spread bitcoin at the lowest possible peer-to-peer rates, not to get wealthy. Freeman lived in a church parsonage (a duplex) and drove a 2007 Toyota RAV4.

Nine months after the trial, the judge overturned the jury's guilty verdict for "Money Laundering" because the prosecution had not proved Ian had knowledge of an IRS undercover buying bitcoin from his Church's vending machines. After buying bitcoin multiple times from Ian on localbitcoins.com, the undercover came to multiple real-life meetups in Keene. At one, the undercover claimed to be a heroin dealer. He then tried to buy bitcoin from Ian and Ian refused. Ian knew from previous prosecutions of other localbitcoins sellers in the War on Crypto that undercover agents always try this tactic. At the end of the meetup, the agent came a month later to another bitcoin meetup and asked Ian if the Bitcoin Vending Machine was still at a bar in Keene and Ian said it was. The agent asked if he could use it and Ian said, "I can't tell you you can use that". The agent said "OK". Later on the agent went to the bar and purchased bitcoin from the machine. The government said this was "Money Laundering". The jury agreed and the judge overturned their guilty finding.

The Shire Free Church is an interfaith peace church founded in 2012. In addition to operating a nationally syndicated radio program for many years, it also donated physical worship space to local Muslims in Keene, NH (one of the local Muslims gratefully testified about this at trial), funded the construction of an orphanage in Uganda, and regularly donated to the local homeless shelter (the Executive Director aslo testified about this at trial). The Shire Free Church launched its first Bitcoin Vending Machine in Keene, NH in 2014 as a part of the church’s mission to spread peace.

As a peace church minister, Ian believes that spreading bitcoin helps foster peace, as the US Dollar is an inflationary tool that allows the government to cause endless war. Moving value from dollars into bitcoin and other cryptocurrency helps protect the individual's value from inflation and being used for global destruction and killing. Despite the claims of the prosecution of Ian charging buyers high rates, the Church's bitcoin offerings were done at a competitive rate in their respective markets - both the New England Bitcoin Vending Machine market and the LocalBitcoins market. For years, the Church's Bitcoin Vending Machines operated at the lowest rate in the entire region, far lower than those in Boston.

No. Ian was a top peer-to-peer bitcoin seller on LocalBitcoins.com and had thousands of buyers in his five years active on the site. He had a 100% positive user rating. Ian had a rigorous security screening procedure for all buyers that was designed to catch scams. The defense showed at trial that because of his security procedure Ian was able to successfully stop multiple scams in-progress and returned money to the scammers' victims. However, despite his best efforts, Ian later learned during the discovery phase of the trial that about 1-2% of his thousands of cutomers turned out to be scam victims. He had no idea at the time, as they all successfully passed his security checks, many coming back to buy multiple times. Nonetheless, the government paraded the scammers' victims on the stand and then without any evidence, alleged Ian was part of a "Conspiracy to Money Launder".

Though the jury convicted Ian of a separate "Money Laundering" count, the judge later overturned that conviction, as the jury was wrong. Obviously the defense believes the jury was wrong about all eight counts, and that's why we're appealing the case.

An IRS agent testified at trial that usually the IRS sends notices to people who they suspect are not following their tax rules. Not in Ian's case. He never once received any notice of deficiency by the IRS. The four "tax evasion" counts were brought later as part of a "superceding indictment", which is a way for the government stack up even more charges, putting more pressure on a defendant to take a plea instead of going to trial. During her testimony, the IRS accountant who testified for the government admitted that if they'd actually sat down with Ian and examined his case, that it was possible he would not owe anything. This is clear reasonable doubt, but the jury did not care and found Ian guilty on all four counts.

Freeman volunteered his time to help local businesses accept cryptos at their point of sale as well as troubleshooting any issues, and donating the necessary equipment. Revenue from the bitcoin sales was rolled back into the community in the form of ongoing broadcast radio ads explaining bitcoin to the local community and also giveaways of tens of thousands of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency to several hundred radio listeners over a few years of the ads running. The Church also launched the Bitcoin Embassy NH, which gave free "Bitcoin 101" classes to anyone who requested one. Freeman never personally profited from the bitcoin sales and all revenue was used to repurchase coins for further sale or used for the benefit of the community.