Ohio 712 Bitcoin Thief Faces 40 Years In Jail

Key Points:

• Gary Harmon was sentenced to jail for taking 713 Bitcoin from a computer device seized by the authorities in connection with a case involving his elder brother.
• He also agreed to give up cryptocurrency and other property worth more than $20 million.

Gary James Harmon of Ohio was sentenced to four years and three months in jail for stealing 712 Bitcoin from his brother, according to the US Department of Justice.

Gary Harmon, 31, was sentenced Thursday in Washington, DC, by US District Judge Beryl Howell, after pleading guilty in January. He also agreed to give up cryptocurrency and other assets worth more than $20 million.

Harmon pled guilty to criminal charges in January, facing one count of wire fraud and one count of obstruction of justice, each having a potential penalty of 40 years.

He obtained the 712 Bitcoin in question after his brother’s incarceration in February 2020. The money was valued at about $4.8 million at the time they were stolen, according to the Justice Department.

Harmon acknowledged in April 2020 that he used his brother’s credentials to replicate eight Bitcoin wallets held on a device in an Internal Revenue Service evidence locker. The Bitcoin he stole was one of 4,877 digital tokens seized from his brother, Larry Dean Harmon, who was arrested in February 2020 for operating Helix, a coin-mixing service that processed over 350,000 Bitcoin between 2014 and 2017 and partnered with several darknet markets, according to the Justice Department.

Larry Dean Harmon subsequently pled guilty in 2021 to a money laundering conspiracy and crimes related to unlawful money transfer. In addition to criminal charges, Larry Dean Harmon was fined $60 million by The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the first time a Bitcoin mixer was penalized.

Though proponents of coin mixers have described them as necessary tools for ensuring the privacy of crypto transactions, government officials have attacked the services, claiming that they are critical to hackers and other bad actors.

After the Bitcoin vanished from the IRS device, agents discovered a photo on Gary Harmon’s cellphone of him smiling in a tub full of cash at a nightclub. Authorities claim he used 68 Bitcoin as collateral for a $1.2 million loan and used part of the funds to purchase a luxurious property in Cleveland.

According to court records, Harmon attended two bail hearings for his brother and discovered in court that the authorities needed the difficult seed phrase to access the Bitcoin that his brother had placed on a Trezor device. Someone with the phrase and an extra PIN may steal Bitcoin from another device.

Law enforcement confiscated multiple assets as part of that case, including a cryptocurrency storage device that couldn’t be accessed at first owing to specific security measures, according to the Justice Department.

Harmon’s lawyer said that his client had been held in very severe circumstances for the last 21 months. He’d requested a three-year term.

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Harold

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