DOJ Had Enough Evidence to Convict Roman Storm, Prosecutors Say

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm’s trial followed the law and the judge overseeing his case should not consider acquittal on all charges, federal prosecutors said.

In a post-trial dossier dated last Wednesday, the lawyers of the office of the Southern District of New York of the Department of Justice opposed the motion of acquittal of Storm, saying that they had shown with sufficient evidence that he had built and​​​​​​​​controlled Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing service that was once sanctioned by the United States because of its use by North Korea and other actors.

At the end of September, Storm’s lawyers filed a motion after trial arguing that District Judge Katherine Polk Failla should acquit him of all charges – not only the conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter charge for which he was convicted, but also the two charges in impasse, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate the sanctions law. In that procedural filing, the defense argued that prosecutors did not have sufficient evidence to actually support a conviction on any charge.

In Wednesday’s filing, prosecutors said their evidence was indeed sufficient to show Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and built features he knew would help cybercriminals.

“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 most users accessed the 110 Tornado 2020 Service. the period at the time charged, at least 96 percent of Tornado Cash users accessed the Tornado Cash service through the UI (Tr. 1049, 1182),” the filing said, citing parts of the transcript of the 4-week trial.

The file also argued that prosecutors had enough evidence to support their conspiracy to commit money laundering and a conspiracy to violate sanctions charges, and the judge should not be acquitted of either.

Storm’s lawyers have until next Wednesday to file a response.