Based on a question I asked during the Q&A at Texas Bitcoin, I am suggesting that a New York resident to file a Freedom of Information Act Request regarding Charlie Shrem’s arrest with the prosecutors, authorities who arrested him and the offices of Superintendent Lawsky for the reasons explained below.

This week Charlie Shrem spoke at the Texas Bitcoin Conference – he joined by video conference because he is under house arrest.

Why?

For those who don’t know, he is accused of running a company which was used by a guy who helped another guy have people buy Bitcoins which then were LIKELY used on a website called Silk Road which were then LIKELY used to buy drugs. Seriously. Even if completely true and not taken out of context in any way, the allegations place him five or six steps removed from the POSSIBLE crime of someone else buying drugs (and evidence of such a drug purchase was not even presented in the complaint).

Meanwhile, HSBC had a special deposit bank window constructed to receive tens of millions in cash from the Mexican drug cartel who was involved in 40,000 deaths. No one from HSBC was arrested or charged.

When Charlie was first arrested, like many, my first reaction was “this guy must be a bad guy because he could give Bitcoin a bad name”. After further investigation, like many, I learned that the case was extremely odd, he was very far removed from the people accused of drug purchases etc.

Perhaps most importantly, he seems to have been targeted for his prominence in the Bitcoin space and used as a publicity tool.

This last point is key. Whether you believe Charlie guilty or innocent, if you believe that he was treated differently than someone else outside of Bitcoin would have been, this is a concern for everyone involved in Bitcoin.

Despite having worked with and visited the regulators many times and being easily publicly accessible, Charlie was arrested with much fanfare and publicity with reporters (which someone notified ahead of time) at an airport (which implies flight when really he was scheduled to appear at several speaking engagements), the NY Financial Services hearings were a day away.

Superintendent Lawsky said that the arrest was not timed and was not done for publicity. He also stated that he didn’t know about the arrest ahead of time.

This seems to be an unlikely coincidence.

New York residents should request FOIA information from the regulators, hearing members, law enforcement involved in the arrest, prosecutors and others requesting emails and other records related to the timing of the arrest, communication with reporters and other facts.

We should also all ask the tough questions of lawmakers and regulators about laws which do not have a clear victim when violated.