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August 2022 — sentenced 2023
Crypto as the deposit, not the fraud: The only release of the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Indiana reached in which Bitcoin does documented work in a South Bend case is not a fraud case, and it is printed here at pointer size, soberly, because the payment instrument is this section's subject and the case itself belongs to the criminal record. Kevin Roell, 40, of South Bend, pleaded guilty to attempted sex trafficking of a minor and was sentenced by United States District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. to 144 months in prison followed by eight years of supervised release. According to the Justice Department, in August 2022 Roell communicated over the internet with a person he agreed to pay to facilitate his having sex with a fifteen-year-old girl; in the Department's words, "Roell used Bitcoin to pay a deposit," and then arrived at a hotel in South Bend with roses, jewelry, and cash. The case was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations with the Indiana State Police and the Collin County, Texas, sheriff's office, and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood.
The fraud test, negative: No crypto-fraud prosecution touching a South Bend resident — as defendant or as victim — appears in the Northern District releases reached. The district's cryptocurrency-fraud sentencings are the Fort Wayne division's, told in the Fort Wayne record and not imported here; Indiana's largest crypto-theft prosecution, that of Evan Frederick Light of Lebanon, who stole more than $37 million and drew twenty years on February 6, 2025, was brought in the District of South Dakota. South Bend's documented crypto record contains no fraud case of its own.
Sources:
- U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Indiana, "South Bend Man Sentenced to 144 months in Prison" (2023) — Kevin Roell: the plea, the sentence, the Bitcoin deposit, and the investigation.
- U.S. Department of Justice releases for the Northern District of Indiana (searched for this section) — the absence of a South Bend crypto-fraud case; the Fort Wayne division's crypto-fraud cases are in the Fort Wayne record.
- U.S. Department of Justice, District of South Dakota (February 6, 2025) — Evan Frederick Light of Lebanon, Indiana, sentenced to twenty years; boundary item only.