Judge Should Not Acquit Tornado Cash Dev Roman Storm, Prosecutors Argue

The DOJ filed its ain post-trial question past week, pushing backmost against Storm's question for acquittal.

Nov 16, 2025, 7:00 p.m.

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's proceedings followed the instrumentality and the justice overseeing his lawsuit should not see acquitting him of each charges, national prosecutors said.

In a post-trial filing dated past Wednesday, attorneys with the Department of Justice's Southern District of New York bureau pushed backmost against Storm's question for acquittal, saying they had proved with capable grounds that helium had built and controlled Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing work that was erstwhile sanctioned by the U.S. owed to its usage by North Korean and different actors.

At the extremity of September, Storm's attorneys filed a post-trial motion arguing that District Judge Katherine Polk Failla should acquit him of each charges — not conscionable the conspiracy to run an unlicensed wealth transmitter complaint helium was convicted on, but besides the 2 deadlocked charges, conspiring to perpetrate wealth laundering and conspiring to interruption sanctions law. In that procedural filing, the defence argued that the prosecutors did not person capable grounds to genuinely enactment a condemnation connected immoderate charge.

In Wednesday's filing, prosecutors stated that their grounds was so capable to show that Storm was a co-founder of Tornado Cash and had built features helium knew would assistance cybercriminals.

"The defendant’s power was neither passive nor incidental: helium and his co-conspirators changed the UI astir 250 times betwixt February 26, 2020 and August 8, 2022, (Tr. 1063-64, 1078-79), controlling the means by which the immense bulk of users accessed the Tornado Cash Service, (Tr. 1049, 1182). During the charged clip period, astatine slightest 96 percent of Tornado Cash users accessed the Tornado Cash work done the UI. (Tr. 1049, 1182)," the filing said, referencing portions of the transcript from the 4-week trial.

The filing besides argued that prosecutors had capable grounds to enactment their conspiracy to perpetrate wealth laundering and conspiracy to interruption sanctions charges, and the justice should not acquit connected either of those.

Storm's attorneys person until this upcoming Wednesday to record a response.

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