The trial of cash-strapped Roman Storm followed the law and the judge overseeing his case should not have considered acquitting him of all charges, federal prosecutors said.
In A post-trial filing Dated Wednesday, attorneys with the Southern Department of Justice office of New York pushed back against Storm’s motion for annulment, saying they found enough evidence that he built and controlled Tornado Cash, the crypto-mingling service that the US previously punished for its use by North Korea and other actors.
At the end of September, Storm’s lawyers filed a post-trial motion Arguing that the district judge Katherine Polk Failla should get him all the charges – not only the conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter charge that he was convicted of, but also the two deadlocked charges, conspiring to make cooking money and conspiracy to violate the penal law. In filing that proceeding, the defense argued that prosecutors did not have enough evidence to truly support a conviction on any charge.
In Wednesday’s filing, prosecutors said their evidence was indeed sufficient to show that Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and built features he knew would help cybercriminals.
“Defendant’s control was not passive or accidental: 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 majority of users accessed the Tornado Cash Service, (Tr. 1049, 1182). Users access the Tornado Cash Service through the UI.
The filing also argued that prosecutors had enough evidence to support their conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate criminal charges, and the judge should not have been taken on either of those.
Storm’s attorneys have until next Wednesday to file a response.
