The judge says that OFAC sanctions have decreased against Tornado Cash cannot come at trial.

New York, New York – US Treasury Office to Combat Foreign Assets (OFAC) The Federal Judge decided on Tuesday that the penalties against the Tornado Cash privacy tools cannot be discussed in the upcoming trial of Roman Storm.

At a conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, the provincial judge, Catherine Polk Villa, initially increased whether it was to allow expert witnesses to testify about the sanctions, which was initially imposed in August 2022, was removed in March and then found illegal by the Texas Court.

After hearing arguments from both the prosecution and defense, Failla decided to grant Storm to move to Limine to prohibit testimonies about the penalties completely, on the pretext that it would be very confusing that the jury would do what it described as “mental gymnastics” to understand the reason for imposing the sanctions and decline in the end.

Villa said, “I will prevent the signals to OFAC sanctions in August 2022,” with a warning that it was leaving the possibility of the “unicorn document” – a major evidence of the claim that relies on the alleged storm behavior after imposing the sanctions – may change its opinion before the trial. Failla gave the prosecutor until Wednesday to provide any such evidence. judge Revision earlier on Tuesday It will not be allowed to discuss the case of the Ministry of Treasury. Which ultimately led to the dropping of sanctions.

The rest of the storm movements in Limine (Type of movement before the trial to exclude certain evidence or arguments to allow it during the trial) He was rejected, including a proposal to prevent signals to the piracy group that the state is offered in North Korea, the Lazaros Group, and asked the “inflammatory descriptions” of the torn storm sales. Earlier in the day, prosecutors said they intend to provide evidence that the storm benefited from its involvement in Tornado Cash, including buying and selling many houses of $ 12 million of torn codes after the Offac Cash.

Prosecutors said that they are not planning to trial that the storm violated the bank’s secret law (BSA) By not implementing a known protocol for money laundering/control of money for Tornado Cash, only to express the testimony of expert witnesses that could not exist.

Failla also ruled to allow the government to produce evidence from the storm colleague from the Tornado Cash Phone Alexey Pertsev. The Dutch government allowed the US Federal Investigation Office (FBI) A representative to view a report of the Pertsev phone, from which the agent submitted his own report with selected parts of the information. The storm’s defense tried to obtain the Pertsev phone evidence, on the pretext that the report was disappeared with cherries and was impossible to ratify it, but the judge stood up with the prosecution, and decided that the report was acceptable.

After a lot back and forth between the two parties on their expert witnesses, Failla eliminated that all witnesses could witness, although they put some handrails on some witnesses to both sides.

It is not yet clear whether the storm would witness his defense, although Failla said on Tuesday that if he took the situation, he will not be allowed to say that he had a first amendment protection in his work with Tornado Cash.

Failla said that the storm was free to discuss his belief in the rights of privacy, but he said: “I do not think that freedom of expression or the rights of the first amendment should appear in this trial.”

A final conference before the trial will be held at 3 pm East time on Friday. Storm is scheduled to start on June 14, and is expected to work for four weeks.