According to Foresight News and reported by The Block, Roman Storm, a co-developer of the decentralized privacy protocol Tornado Cash, was formally tried on July 15 in the federal court in Manhattan, New York, with the case expected to last four weeks. The prosecution accused him of conspiracy to launder money, violating U.S. sanctions regulations, and operating an unlicensed money transfer business, with a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison if all three charges are established.
The prosecution claims that Storm and co-founder Roman Semenov assisted cybercriminal groups, including North Korea's Lazarus Group, in laundering over $1 billion through the Tornado Cash mixing tool, citing the case of developer Alexey Pertsev, who was previously convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands, as a reference.
The defense denies the charges and questions the key evidence submitted by the prosecution, including a Telegram message related to the Ronin bridge hacking case stating 'launder $600 million.' The defense attorney claims that the information actually came from a journalist and was forwarded by another developer, and Storm was not the author. Although the prosecution acknowledged the initial evidence had misleading label omissions, it still requested the court to reject the motion to exclude evidence.
The defense also opposed the prosecution's use of chat records, text messages, and images obtained from Apple, X (formerly Twitter), and the investment firm Dragonfly through subpoenas as evidence, claiming they are private communications. However, Judge Katherine Polk Failla has not yet accepted these arguments.
Currently, over $1.9 million has been raised to support Storm's legal defense, including a $500,000 donation from the Ethereum Foundation. Supporters believe he was merely writing open-source code and did not directly control user behavior, thus should be protected by free speech. However, the prosecution emphasizes that the operation of Tornado Cash is akin to that of a business, and Storm failed to take any anti-money laundering measures, ignoring multiple potential risk warnings.
