Heather Morgan, one of the married duo sentenced in the Bitfinex hack, leapt back into social media last week after getting out of prison, and the would-be rapper known as “Razzlekhan” touted the aide of President Donald Trump in her early release.
But a White House official told CoinDesk that it had nothing to do with a commutation of her sentence.
That, despite a video she posted from her bathtub over the weekend, saying, “I want to give a shoutout to Papa Trump for making my 18-month sentence shorter,” which seemed to have spurred online media reports that the president intervened.
She didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the discrepancy.
Morgan had been convicted and sentenced for her role in laundering the proceeds of the hack said to be conducted by her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein. He stole nearly 120,000 bitcoin, worth about $13.8 billion at today’s valuation, though it was worth significantly less during the 2016 incident and his 2022 arrest. He’s still serving his five-year sentence.
The couple was the topic of a documentary Netflix released last year called “Biggest Heist Ever.”
On her early release from prison in California, which would be consistent with an inmate who maintained good behavior, she launched into a flurry of social media posts, including one about Trump’s high-profile pardon of former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. She posted, “Guess it’s crypto pardon season,” further suggesting she may have benefited from the president’s intervention in her sentence.
That pardon, which had followed the earlier Trump pardon of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, drew objections on Tuesday from Senate Democrats including Elizabeth Warren, who wrote a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, arguing the act “signals to cryptocurrency executives and other white-collar criminals that they can commit crimes with impunity.”
In Morgan’s sentencing hearing in Washington almost a year ago, she’d told the court that she was “extremely sorry and deeply regret the choices I made,” In a tearful statement, she admitted to using her “time and energy to do harm instead of good, and I’m ashamed of that.”
Now, Morgan is hinting at a return to her rapping career in a pinned post on social media site X, “Who’s ready for NEW Razzlekhan music?”
Read More: Bitfinex Hack Launderer Heather ‘Razzlekhan’ Morgan Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison