Judge Should Not Acquit Tornado Cash Dev Roman Storm, Prosecutors Argue

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's trial followed the law and the judge overseeing his case should not consider acquitting him of all charges, federal prosecutors said.

In a post-trial filing dated last Wednesday, attorneys with the Department of Justice's Southern District of New York office pushed back against Storm's motion for acquittal, saying they had proved with sufficient evidence that he had built and controlled Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing service that was once sanctioned by the U.S. due to its use by North Korean and other actors.

At the end of September, Storm's attorneys filed a post-trial motion arguing that District Judge Katherine Polk Failla should acquit him of all charges — not just the conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter charge he was convicted on, but also the two deadlocked charges, conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to violate sanctions law. In that procedural filing, the defense argued that the prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to truly support a conviction on any charge.

In Wednesday's filing, prosecutors stated that their evidence was indeed sufficient to demonstrate that Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and had built features he knew would aid cybercriminals.

"The defendant’s control was neither passive nor incidental: he and his co-conspirators changed the UI approximately 250 times between February 26, 2020 and August 8, 2022, (Tr. 1063-64, 1078-79), controlling the means by which the vast majority of users accessed the Tornado Cash Service, (Tr. 1049, 1182). During the charged time period, at least 96 percent of Tornado Cash users accessed the Tornado Cash service through the UI. (Tr. 1049, 1182)," the filing said, referencing portions of the transcript from the 4-week trial.

The filing also argued that prosecutors had enough evidence to support their conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions charges, and the judge should not acquit on either of those.

Storm's attorneys have until this upcoming Wednesday to file a response.