WASHINGTON Dec 16 the next hearing in the case of Russian Alexander Vinnik on February 14, 2023 and ordered the prosecution to present evidence by the same date, Judge Suson Ilston announced on Friday.
«A consensual hearing has been scheduled for February 14. This is also the deadline for presenting (evidence),» Ilston said.
Vinnik was arrested on July 25, 2017 on the Halkidiki peninsula in Greece at the request of the United States. There, he was accused of violating American law and creating, without a license from the authorities of the country, the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange, through which, according to the United States, billions of dollars were laundered. In the United States, Vinnik was threatened with 55 years in prison, that is, in fact, a life sentence.
In January 2020, a Russian was extradited to France on 19 charges, but the court acquitted him of all charges brought by France and sentenced him to five years on one American charge. Moreover, the French court considered that Vinnik did not commit a criminal offense, but a misdemeanor. His term ended, but Vinnik remained in prison. He should have already been returned to Greece for extradition to the United States, but then the ECHR banned the extradition of the Russian to Greece.
In August of this year, Vinnik was extradited from Europe, where he was first transferred from France to Greece. From there he was flown the same day to Boston in a private jet and then flown on a company jet to San Francisco. The French lawyer of the Russian, Frederic Belo, wrote to the leadership of the Foreign Ministry with a request to pay attention to the Vinnik case during negotiations with the United States.