Dec. 7—CONCORD — A 76-year-old widow will testify about a romance scam that took her life savings, prosecutors said Tuesday at the start of a three-week trial of Free Keene activist Ian Freeman on money-laundering charges.
Danella Varel of Punta Gorda, Florida, lost $755,000 in the scam over a six-day period in June 2020, federal prosecutor Georgianna MacDonald told a jury in U.S. District Court. Varel never met Freeman, but she sent a photo of herself holding a sign authorizing the transfer through Freeman to the scammer.
Freeman, a prominent Free State Project activist, earned a 10% fee to convert Varel’s cash to her scammer’s untraceable bitcoin, MacDonald said.
“Ian Freeman had one golden rule for the criminals he served. What you do with your bitcoin is your business. Don’t tell me what your plans are,” MacDonald said. Victims of scams, mostly middle-aged and elderly people from around the country, are queued up to testify, she said.
Freeman faces eight charges involving money laundering, operation of an unauthorized money transfer operation and tax evasion. Freeman has blogged that he faces a maximum term of 70 years if convicted on all the charges.
His lawyer, veteran Concord defense attorney Mark Sisti, said the prosecution’s case is “absolute nonsense.”
Although the prosecution claims that Freeman laundered money from ill-gotten scams, no scammer will testify about laundering his proceeds through Freeman, Sisti said.
Sisti said he will push back on the victim…
