The trial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm 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 from the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York office rejected Storm’s motion to acquit, saying they had shown with sufficient evidence that he had built and controlled Tornado Cash, the cryptocurrency mixing service that was once sanctioned by the U.S. due to its use by North Korea and other actors.
In late September, Storm’s attorneys filed a posttrial motion arguing that District Judge Katherine Polk Failla should acquit him of all charges, not only of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter for which he was convicted, but also of the two stalled counts, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the sanctions law. In that procedural filing, the defense argued that prosecutors did not have enough evidence to truly support a conviction on any charge.
In Wednesday’s filing, prosecutors claimed their evidence was enough to show that Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and had created features that he knew would help cybercriminals.
“Defendant’s control was neither passive nor incidental: he and his co-conspirators changed the user interface 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 period of time charged, at least 96 percent of Tornado Cash users accessed the Tornado Cash service through the user interface (Tr. 1049, 1182),” the document says, referencing parts of the 4-week test transcript.
The filing also argued that prosecutors had enough evidence to support their charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions, and the judge should not acquit either of them.
Storm’s attorneys have until next Wednesday to file a response.
