New York, NY-A recent memorandum of the US Department of Justice.
The memorandum, sent Monday night by the United States Deputy Attorney General, Todd Blanche, informed the personnel that the Justice Department would no longer be looking for prosecution against cryptographic exchanges, mixing services or wallets offline for the acts of its end users. Blanche told the staff that no violation of federal laws or basic products, except in specific circumstances, in cases where charges “would require the” [DOJ] To litigate whether a digital asset is a “security” or a “merchandise” “and there is an adequate alternative criminal charge.
During a hearing on Thursday, the judge of the United States District Court, Paul Engelmayer, of the Southern New York District (SDNY), asked the prosecutors if the Blanche memorandum would have any impact on the charges against Kwon, which includes two charges of fraud of basic products and two positions of fraud of values, as well as five other positions, including the cable fraud and the conspiracy of cable and the conspiracy of cable fraud
The Prosecutor’s Office told Engelmayer that they “have no plans” to change their charges against Kwon at this time.
David Patton, Kwon’s main lawyer and partner of Hecker Fink LLP, told Engelmayer that the content of Blanche memorandum could at least indirectly lead some movements prior to the defense trial.
“I think it could be the issue of some movements prior to trial,” Patton said. “It may or may not be directly related to the note.” Patton specified that the questions of whether cryptocurrencies involved in the case were values or could not be relevant.
In a separate civil case presented by the United States Stock Exchange and Securities Commission (SEC) against Kwon and Terraft Labs last year, in which it was discovered that Kwon and his company were responsible for fraud, another Judge SDNY found that the tokens involved in the case were, in fact, values.
During Thursday’s hearing, Engelmayer told both the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense to inform him long before the trial if they planned to request that any of the decisions or conclusions made by the court in the case of the SEC adhere to any of the decisions or conclusions in the case of the SEC.
The next lot of movements prior to trial is expected to reach the file in July, and a third state conference for June 12 at 11 am in New York has been scheduled.
Due to the programming challenges, the start date for Kwon’s criminal trial was delayed three weeks from January 26, 2026 until February 17, 2026.
Read more: Kwon’s criminal trial established by 2026 while lawyers are in charge of the ‘mass’ evidence treasure
