DOJ's 'Ending Regulation By Prosecution' Memo: What It Means for My Case

On April 7, 2025, the Deputy Attorney General issued a landmark memorandum titled "Ending Regulation By Prosecution." This memorandum explicitly prohibits the DOJ — and by extension, agencies like the CFTC that rely on DOJ enforcement infrastructure — from pursuing cases without evidence of willful misconduct and actual investor harm.

What the Memo Says

The memorandum states that the government must not pursue criminal or civil enforcement actions against individuals or businesses where:

1. There is no evidence of willful violation of the law
2. There is no actual harm to investors or the public
3. The enforcement action is being used to regulate by litigation rather than through proper legislative channels

Why This Directly Applies to My Case

The CFTC's prosecution of Rose City Fund fails all three tests:

• No willful misconduct: I operated transparently, sending 139 consecutive weekly investor updates with blockchain wallet addresses. Every transaction is publicly verifiable on the Ethereum blockchain.
• No actual investor harm: 69 investors exited RCIF1 with a mean CAGR of 303%. Not one investor lost money. CFTC investigator Dasso admitted under oath that no investor ever complained about not receiving their promised payments.
• Regulation by litigation: The CFTC has never obtained Congressional authorization to regulate Ethereum SPOT transactions. This case is an attempt to establish jurisdiction through litigation that Congress never granted.

The Constitutional Dimension

The DOJ memo aligns with the broader constitutional principle that regulatory agencies cannot expand their own jurisdiction through enforcement actions. The non-delegation doctrine, reinforced by the Supreme Court's West Virginia v. EPA decision, requires that major regulatory questions be decided by Congress — not by agency enforcement staff.

The 7th Circuit is currently considering exactly this question: whether the CFTC has jurisdiction over Ethereum SPOT transactions. The DOJ memo signals that the current administration agrees that regulation by prosecution is unconstitutional.

Conclusion

The April 7, 2025 DOJ memorandum is not just relevant to my case — it is a direct repudiation of the enforcement philosophy that produced it. I have filed this memorandum as an exhibit in my GAO complaint and DOJ criminal complaint, and I will continue to use it as a cornerstone of my advocacy for constitutional accountability in regulatory proceedings.