In Nova Scotia, Justice John Bodurtha has ordered William Sandeson’s family to get back a laptop containing access to his Bitcoin wallet. The ruling turned on a forfeiture dispute: prosecutors argued the laptop and Bitcoin should be kept as property connected to the offence, but the judge found that link had not been established.
Bodurtha said the Crown had not shown the cryptocurrency was tied to the killing, used in the drug transaction, represented proceeds of crime, or was otherwise tainted by criminality. He called the suggestion that the Bitcoin formed part of the deal hypothetical. Without that evidentiary link, the laptop and wallet access could not be forfeited.
The court drew a separate line around cash seized from Sandeson’s apartment. About C$5,000 was classified as offence-related property, so that money remains forfeited. The same legal test did not produce the same result for every seized asset: the cash met the connection test, while prosecutors did not establish one for the wallet.
The amount of Bitcoin involved remains unclear. Estimates discussed in the proceedings ranged from roughly C$8,000 to more than C$200,000, but the actual balance was not reported. This order is about property forfeiture; it does not change Sandeson’s conviction. Its narrow legal point is that digital assets are not automatically forfeitable because they are associated with a criminal case; the Crown still has to prove the required connection.