7 hours ago
Roman Storm’s defence squad raised the imaginable of a mistrial connected July 21 aft an FBI cause failed to corroborate that the stolen assets from the prosecution’s archetypal witnesser successful his proceedings had passed done Tornado Cash.
Journalist Matthew Russell Lee reported successful real-time today’s league of the trial, highlighting that earlier the assemblage could discontinue successful the alternate assemblage room, Storm’s lawyer said they would confer astir moving for a mistrial.
Journalist David Z. Morris then posted a video explaining that the FBI cause liable for tracking the funds from the archetypal witness, Katie Lin, was incapable to travel the funds to Tornado Cash.
Funds not found
Lin told jurors past week she mislaid her beingness savings to a pig-butchering strategy and believed the proceeds moved done the crypto mixer Storm co-created.
Defense lawyer Brian Patton argued that Lin’s relationship whitethorn beryllium inadmissible if prosecutors cannot beryllium Tornado Cash handled her coins.
He argued successful beforehand of US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla that presenting sympathetic grounds without a verifiable on-chain nexus “prejudices the jury” and suggested the deficiency could warrant a mistrial.
Prosecutors stated that a 2nd tracing adept volition code the transfers aboriginal in the trial. However, they did not bespeak whether the witnesser would look successful idiosyncratic oregon taxable a written analysis.
Independent probe challenges authorities tracing
The quality arose aft MetaMask information pb Taylor Monahan published a thread connected July 18, successful which she shared her reappraisal of Lin’s transactions.
Monahan wrote that the $250,000 wired to a fake trading tract called NTU Capital ne'er touched Tornado Cash oregon Coinbase. Instead, the scammer swapped Bitcoin for Ethereum (ETH) via an instant-exchange service, past moved the ETH among self-controlled wallets.
She posted Dune Analytics queries and national asset-seizure filings that database the addresses, contending that an extracurricular “crypto recovery” steadfast misidentified Tornado Cash successful 2022 erstwhile advising Lin.
Judge Failla allowed Patton to confer with Storm regarding the mistrial, which would leave prosecutors to determine whether to retry Storm connected sanctions-violation and wealth laundering counts stemming from the Treasury’s 2022 designation of Tornado Cash arsenic a facilitator of illicit money flows.
For now, proceedings hinge connected whether the forthcoming adept tin verify a Tornado Cash nexus that the FBI’s expert could not establish.
The station Roman Storm’s defence hints astatine mistrial aft agents neglect to hint funds stolen from witnesser to Tornado Cash appeared archetypal connected CryptoSlate.
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