Murgio v. United States

Background

Anthony Murgio created and operated Coin.mx, an unlicensed online Bitcoin exchange. The opinion states that Murgio and others used front companies, false descriptions, and misidentified transactions to persuade banks and credit-card issuers to process Bitcoin-related transactions. The scheme also involved taking control of Helping Other People Excel Federal Credit Union and obstructing a regulatory examination.

Murgio was charged with several federal offenses. In January 2017, he pleaded guilty to portions of three counts: conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, conspiracy to obstruct an examination of a financial institution, and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. His plea agreement stipulated to a sentencing-guidelines range of 121 to 151 months and included a waiver of most challenges to a sentence within or below that range. The agreement expressly preserved claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.

The sentencing court imposed an aggregate 66-month prison term and three years of supervised release. Murgio served the prison term and was on supervised release when he filed the motion at issue. He filed the renewed motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, a procedure allowing a federal prisoner to seek relief from a conviction or sentence in limited circumstances. He proceeded without a lawyer.

Murgio’s Arguments and the Government’s Objections

Murgio argued that the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Ciminelli v. United States made his guilty plea invalid and showed that his conduct did not violate the federal fraud statutes. Ciminelli rejected the “right-to-control” theory of wire fraud, under which a victim’s loss of potentially valuable information needed to make economic decisions could be treated as a loss of property.

Murgio claimed that Ciminelli also affected his bank-fraud conspiracy conviction and that his plea was therefore not knowing or voluntary. He separately argued that his counsel had been ineffective in connection with the plea.

The Government argued that the plea agreement’s waiver barred the motion, that the motion was untimely, and that the court could avoid reaching the claims under the concurrent-sentence doctrine. The court rejected or declined to rely on those procedural arguments. It concluded that the waiver issue required consideration of Murgio’s ineffective-assistance claims, that the timeliness issue was not sufficiently clear to justify rejecting the motion, and that it would exercise its discretion to consider the merits.

Court’s Analysis

The court first concluded that it had authority to consider the motion. Although Murgio had completed his prison term, he remained on supervised release, which satisfied the requirement that a person challenging a federal sentence be “in custody.” The court also found that his challenge was not moot because a conviction can carry continuing legal consequences after imprisonment ends.

The court then examined whether Ciminelli affected Count Six, the bank-fraud conspiracy count. It explained that Ciminelli held that federal wire fraud requires a scheme to deprive a victim of a traditional property interest and that the right-to-control theory cannot support a conviction. The court assumed, without definitively deciding, that this reasoning also applied to the federal bank-fraud statute.

The court nevertheless found no problem with Murgio’s conviction. Count Six charged a conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 1344(2), which concerns obtaining money or other property owned by, or in the custody or control of, a financial institution through materially false statements. According to the court, the Government’s theory was that Murgio and others deceived banks into opening accounts and processing transactions, thereby obtaining or using money and property held by the banks. Murgio’s plea statements similarly admitted that he opened federally insured bank accounts, concealed that Coin.mx was a Bitcoin exchange, and omitted information because he believed the banks would otherwise refuse to provide services.

The court distinguished this theory from the right-to-control theory rejected in Ciminelli. Murgio’s conviction rested on an alleged scheme to obtain traditional property—bank accounts and funds—not merely on depriving banks of information needed to make economic decisions. The court therefore held that Ciminelli did not affect the conviction.

Because the charge was adequately explained during the guilty-plea proceeding, the court found no basis to conclude that Murgio misunderstood the charge or the waiver in his plea agreement. It also found no ineffective assistance of counsel and no basis to conclude that Murgio was actually innocent of the bank-fraud conspiracy. The court additionally rejected Murgio’s argument that Ciminelli invalidated the plea as to all counts, noting that his Ciminelli challenge addressed only Count Six.

Disposition

The court denied Murgio’s motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. It directed the Clerk to terminate the motion, docket the opinion in the criminal and civil cases, and close the civil case. The court also declined to issue a certificate of appealability because Murgio had not made a substantial showing that a constitutional right had been denied. For purposes of any appeal, the court denied permission to proceed without paying court fees after finding that such an appeal would not be taken in good faith.