As seen on Breach Forum, U.K. High Court Judge Stephen Morris has rejected a request by the U.S. to keep Diogo Santos Coelho (aka “Omni” of RaidForums) in jail while the U.S. appeals a magistrate judge’s decision to grant him conditional bail. Coelho was arrested in January 2022, but his arrest was not announced until after the seizure of RaidForums. The U.S. filed an extradition request with the U.K. that has been working its way through the U.K.’s system for considering such requests.
The decision to grant Coelho conditional bail and the High Court’s refusal to stay that pending appeal by the U.S. was reported by Law360, which said that one of Omni’s strong ties to the U.K. was his ailing mother, whom he had come to visit and who appeared to be in her last days.
Anthony Vaughan, representing Coelho, emphasized that his client had waited in prison for six months for his family to come up with the £30,000 ($36,600) in security that will have to be paid to the court before he is released.
“He doesn’t have a lot of money hidden away to present a flight risk,” Vaughan added.
Read more about this latest development at Breached.to. These legal proceedings and filings are not docketed on PACER as part of the U.S.’s prosecution of Coelho.