Booking photos for Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein.Courtesy: Alexandria Adult Detention Center.The New York couple charged with trying to launder $4.5 billion in bitcoin stolen in a 2016 hack of Bitfinex appear set to plead guilty in the case.The couple, Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Rhiannon Morgan, have been newly charged in the case with a document known as an information, according to a new Washington, D.C., federal court docket entry Friday.An information is a type of charging document that federal prosecutors typically use when defendants have agreed to plead guilty.Another docket entry shows that Lichtenstein and the aspiring rapper Morgan have been ordered to appear in court on Aug. 3 for separate arraignments and plea hearings on the information.The nature of the charge or charges in the information was not made public. It is common for informations to have fewer charges than those originally lodged against defendants, or to have different ones.Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly on Friday ordered prosecutors and defense lawyers to provide plea paperwork to her by Thursday, the docket shows.That paperwork is to include “charged offense(s) and statutory provision; charge(s) in plea and statutory provision; elements of the offense; copy of the plea agreement; penalties; and [federal sentencing] guideline calculations.”The couple was originally charged in a criminal complaint when they were arrested in February 2022, and had pleaded not guilty to the charges listed in that document – money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to defraud the …
