Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm will stand trial on July 14. The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) recently stated that while the prosecution has decided to drop some charges, Roman Storm will still face criminal responsibility for three other felonies, and the trial will proceed as scheduled.
According to a letter submitted by the U.S. Department of Justice to the presiding judge, prosecutors will withdraw the charge against Roman Storm for "failing to register as a Money Transmitter"; however, he will still face charges of "conspiracy to launder money," "conspiracy to evade sanctions," and "transferring criminal proceeds."
Tornado Cash is a mixing protocol deployed on the Ethereum chain, aimed at protecting user privacy. However, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Tornado Cash in 2022, prohibiting U.S. citizens from using the service and accusing the platform of laundering over $7 billion in cryptocurrency since 2019, including $455 million stolen by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group.
Another key point of interest in this case is the significant shift in U.S. regulatory policy. According to a memorandum released last month, the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that it will no longer misuse the criminal justice system to exert pressure on the cryptocurrency industry through lawsuits following Trump's return to the White House.
The document emphasizes that regulatory responsibilities should be borne by civil regulatory agencies (such as the SEC and CFTC), while the Department of Justice should focus on prosecuting cases that cause substantial harm to investors and society, such as terrorist financing, hacking attacks, or fraudulent activities.
"The U.S. Department of Justice only dropped some charges; Tornado Cash co-founder will be tried as scheduled in July" was first published on (Blockkey).