Prosecutors in the case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm are trying to avoid the possibility that a New York judge forces them to deliver additional evidence that can help the Storm case.
In a letter from Wednesday to the Court, prosecutors retreated against the statements of Storm’s lawyers that they had not fulfilled their so -called Brady obligations, a constitutional requirement for prosecutors to deliver any potentially useful evidence to the defense before the trial.
In the heart of the debate there is a recent production of evidence in another case in the South District of New York (SDNY): the legal persecution of the co -founder of the Samourai wallet, Keonne Rodríguez and William Lonergan Hill. Both cases involve a cryptographic mixing service that prosecutors allege that it was used to wash the income of the crime,
However, in the case of Samourai’s wallet, prosecutors recently admitted to having a conversation with two officials of the Financial Crime Control Network (FINCEN) in 2023, before pressing charges, in which government employees said they did not believe that the mixing service would qualify as a money transmission business under its guidelines and did not need a license to operate. Rodríguez and Hill’s lawyers accused prosecutors of suppressing critical evidence and violating their right to due process. Last week, the judge supervised the case denied his motion of a hearing on the matter, telling them that they include their concerns in their prior motion that expires at the end of the month.
Although the cases are separated, the lawyers of the Roman storm expressed concern that the failure of the Prosecutor’s Office to inform them about their communications with Finnn with respect to the state of Samourai’s wallet as a money transmission business also potentially constituted a rape of Brady in the case of a storm.
In his Wednesday response, prosecutors said Finn’s conversation was not evidence. Prosecutors also stated that their discussion with Finnn was irrelevant in the case of Storm, because it was not specifically about Tornado’s cash.
“Tornado’s cash was simply not part of the conversation,” prosecutors wrote. “While Samourai’s wallet and tornado cash service can share some surface similarities, they operated very differently.”
Prosecutors said they had no similar conversations with Finnn about Tornado’s cash, claiming that “there were no such interactions comparable to those described in Rodriguez’s revelations.”
“As the Government has repeatedly explained to the defense in this case, the Government has not sought or obtained an opinion of any employee in Finnn, or any other government agency, with respect to whether the tornado cash service is subject to registration obligations,” prosecutors wrote. “Such an opinion, especially an informal opinion offered by employees who expressly renounce to speak for the agency, would not be legally admissible and would not constitute Brady’s material.”
The case against the storm will begin on July 14 in New York.
