On Thursday, Gary Harmonresident of Ohio, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty in January to stealing more than 712 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) from a computer seized by the federal government.
According to a statement from the Department of Justice, Harmon must also give up “specific properties,” including his crypto holdings, which are valued at more than $20 million.
In April 2020, Harmon used the credentials of his older brother, Larry Harmon, to recover 713 Bitcoin stored on a device the latter had used as part of a darknet-based cryptocurrency laundering service. The bitcoin was valued at around $4.9 million at the time.
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Larry Harmon was charged in February 2020 with laundering $300 million worth of Bitcoin by running the darknet-based service Helix. He pleaded guilty 18 months later.
Also Read: Man Gets Jail After Feds Discover $3.4B in Stolen Bitcoin Hidden in Cheetos Popcorn Tin
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A court filing reveals that prosecutors and Gary Harmon’s attorney disagreed about the sophistication required to pull off the theft.
“While the conduct was certainly illegal, it is practically no different and no more sophisticated than obtaining a key to a safe deposit box and taking the contents of that safe deposit box,” Gary Harmon’s attorney wrote, according to Bloomberg.
The prosecution countered and wrote that “[while] analogies in the physical world often fall short when describing cyber incidents, the defendant’s behavior is more analogous to using powerful tools to quietly tunnel into a bank vault from a neighboring building and siphon out all the funds while law enforcement tried in vain to unlock the bank’s front. door.”
Prosecutors said Gary Harmon used 68 Bitcoins as collateral for a $1.2 million loan and used some to buy a luxury apartment in Cleveland. The Justice Department also found a photo of him in a nightclub bathtub full of dollar bills on his phone.
The department said 712 BTC would be worth just under $21 million at today’s prices.
Read next: Anthony Scaramucci says he’s more bullish on Bitcoin now than ever before: ‘Incredibly solid, bizarrely anti-fragile asset class’
Photo: Shutterstock
