Bitcoin Magazine
Samourai Letter #4: Notes From The Inside
Dear Reader,
As I write this letter to you it is January 19th, 2026. I have been in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons for 31 days. One full month. I figure that is a milestone worthy of penning another letter to you. The time has simultaneously crawled at a snail’s pace and raced by quicker than I can understand. From day to day time moves unbearably slowly. The day crawls by, I feel as if I am walking through quicksand, every step an enormous effort. A minute feels like an hour, and hour feels like a day. But at the same time it feels as if just yesterday I was surrendering myself to FPC Morgantown.
If you have time to read this article, you have time to sign the petition to free Samourai Wallet developers Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill. Every signature counts.
The one month milestone has been able to creep on me surprisingly quickly while I was concerned with how slow time has been passing. I was sentenced by Judge Dusty Coat, excuse me, Judge Denise Cote for a period of 60 months of incarceration. One month down, 59 more to go.
Prison is a totally alien environment. Everything is seemingly backwards and designed to frustrate you. As many prisoners have said to me, “BOP stands for Backwards On Purpose”, and they really aren’t wrong.
Here is a quick example, because the US taxpayer is now responsible for my health and well being I have been placed on the waiting list for a dental check, cleaning, and any basic work that might be needed (filling, extraction, etc…). Being a logical person I concluded that the wait would not be too long considering the population of FPC Morgantown is so low (around 160 inmates when well over 800 can be held here) it wouldn’t take too long for my name to reach the ‘top of the list’.
I was then informed that the waiting list includes all inmates within the entire BOP at every facility. So even though our dentist here only has 160 people to see, I must wait for someone in Oklahoma who is higher than me on the list to receive treatment before I can be seen. Backwards on Purpose. Nothing works logically or as expected.
On my 28th day here I received my A&O – Admission and Orientation – which is mostly a box checking operation as we have all been orientated by the other inmates in the 28 days we have been here.
In any case, we were told that being here is not a punishment. The punishment is the sentence the judge hands down, the time away from family, being here at the Federal prison is just our home for a short time. They tell you this with a straight face while counting you five times a day, forcing you to work for slave wages, and restricting the number of people you can communicate with per month. Not a punishment.
There are vaguely motivational posters placed around the inside of the housing unit. Most are so saccharine they make me queasy, I could do with out the ‘HR-ization’ of prison thank
