By: Protos Staff

Compiled by: TechFlow

This week, some Binance fans shared their excitement on X (formerly Twitter) that the exchange’s founder, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), was set to complete his prison sentence on August 30. However, a quick fact check revealed that he would not actually be released on that date.

On April 30, U.S. District Judge Richard Jones sentenced CZ to four months in a Seattle jail and recommended that he enter Seatac, a federal detention center that combines prison and administrative security.

Many observers apparently believed that CZ entered Seatac on the same day, which would have made August 30 his release date. However, CZ’s attorneys, from the prominent law firms Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Davis Wright Tremaine, and Latham & Watkins, worked hard to ensure that CZ was granted a few weeks of additional freedom.

An example of a non-fact posted on Crypto Twitter:

Pahueg: @cz_binance was sentenced to four months in prison on Tuesday, April 30, 2024.

If he starts jail immediately, his deadline to become a free man would be August 30, 2024.

As of May 16, CZ had not yet entered the Bureau of Prisons’ detention center, and it was not until several days later that CZ, his attorney, and the Office of Probation and Pretrial Services set a later jail date.

A current check of the Bureau of Prisons database also shows that CZ is not in Seatac but is being held at Lompoc II, a low-security federal prison three hours north of Los Angeles.

When will CZ be released from prison?

Unless CZ’s situation changes, he will not leave FCI Lompoc II on August 30. Instead, his current release date is set for September 29.

As Protos reported last month, the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees due process rights to all persons within the United States, including noncitizens like CZ. This array of safeguards encompasses all of the unique circumstances of CZ’s incarceration, including his arrival in prison nearly a month after his sentencing, the lower-security non-Seatac facility he was held in, and early delays in the court process.