Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s trial followed the law and the judge in his case should not consider acquitting him of all charges, federal prosecutors said.
In a post-trial filing dated last Wednesday, attorneys for the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York office opposed Storm’s request for acquittal, saying they had proven with sufficient evidence that he built and controlled Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing service that was once sanctioned by the United States due to its use by North Korea and other actors.
In late September, Storm’s lawyers 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 for which he was convicted, but also the two deadlocked charges, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the Sanctions Act. In that procedural filing, the defense argued that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to truly support a conviction on any charge.
In the filing Wednesday, prosecutors said their evidence was indeed sufficient to demonstrate that Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and that he created features that he knew could help cybercriminals.
“Defendant’s control was neither passive nor incidental: he and his co-conspirators modified 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). at least 96 percent of Tornado Cash users accessed the Tornado Cash service through the user interface (Tr. 1049, 1182),” the filing states, referencing portions of the 4-week trial transcript.
The filing also argued that prosecutors had enough evidence to support their conspiracy to commit money laundering and their conspiracy to violate the sanctions charges, and that the judge should acquit neither.
Storm’s lawyers have until next Wednesday to file a response.
