GOP’s Murphy may be called to testify in Crypto 6 case

Keith Murphy, the NHGOP’s hand-picked candidate for state Senate, may end up explaining to a jury his business dealings with the defendants in the infamous Crypto 6 money laundering case.

Ian Freeman, the last of the Keene Crypto 6 defendants went to trial, faces more than 30 federal felonies for his Bitcoin business, which included running Bitcoin ATMs at various business locations. One of those ATMs was set up in the Manchester location of Murphy’s Taproom, a restaurant owned by the Senate candidate.

Freeman’s attorney says he may call Murphy as a defense witness.

“All I did was make some wall space for the machine,” Murphy told the NH Journal.

Murphy, a former GOP state representative, was chosen by State Chairman Stephen Stepanek to replace State Representative Michael Yakubovich (R-Hooksett) on the November ballot for the District 16 race. Yakubovich dropped out just days after the Sept. 13 primary due to health concerns.

“That’s not how you want to be in the Senate, but that’s the way it goes,” Murphy said.

Federal law enforcement agents seized the Murphy’s Taproom ATM during the March 2021 raids of several homes and businesses linked to Freeman’s activities. Freeman is accused of running a multimillion-dollar money laundering scheme that helped facilitate online fraudsters, according to court documents.

Murphy said he has not been in contact with any federal law enforcement agencies since the machine was removed.

Freeman’s defense attorney, Mark Sisti, said Murphy may be called as a witness, but it’s too early to say anything definitive. “I don’t know yet,” said Sisti.

Murphy said he has not been approached about being a potential witness.

Freeman has maintained that he did nothing wrong in selling the cryptocurrency through his churches and is adamant that he will have his day in court. Contacted last week, Freeman confirmed he had one of the Shire Free Church Bitcoin ATMs at Murphy’s Taproom since March 2016.

Murphy said he was never directly involved in exchanging money for Bitcoin or vice versa. The ATM was in the restaurant as a favor to some of his customers, he said.

“We had customers who wanted to pay with Bitcoin,” Murphy said. “This gave them a way to easily convert their own money into Bitcoin.”

Murphy said he doesn’t remember the exact details of the deal he had with Freeman, but said he didn’t make money off the machine.

“Sometimes they would give me some money to pay for the electricity. But there was no set fee for the event, Murphy said.

Murphy’s recollection contradicts Freeman’s understanding of his own business. According to Freeman, the ATMs brought in money for the host business through a percentage of the total transactions.

“The Shire Free Church is not a business, but obviously we had to compensate our venues for the space/power/internet they provided,” Freeman said. “All of our venues received one percent of gross sales from their machine. Many crypto slot operators only pay a flat fee per month to their venues. Our venues were very happy with our event as they did very well in busy months.”

Freeman took in millions of dollars through his Bitcoin exchanges and Bitcoin ATMs, according to court records. He allegedly used personal bank accounts and accounts of composite churches such as Shire Free Church, Crypto Church of NH, Church of the Invisible Hand and Reformed Satanic Church, to run his Bitcoin empire. Part of the scheme Freeman ran helped cybercriminals swindle money from victims of lonely hearts scams, according to prosecutors.

Business was good, and authorities allege Freeman parted with millions of dollars in cash and cryptocurrency.

Four of the other Crypto 6 defendants, Renee Spinella, Andrew Spinella, Aria DiMezzo and Nobody (aka Rick Paul), have entered pleas. The fifth suspect, Colleen Fordham, was dropped earlier this year.