Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm case moves to trial as judge denies dismissal

Roman Storm, a developer and co-founder of Tornado Cash, will face criminal trial over his creation of the crypto-mixing platform after a judge denied his motion to dismiss a United States government case.

In a Sept. 26 telephone conference, New York district court judge Katherine Polk Failla denied Storm’s bid to toss three federal charges brought by the Justice Department, saying government prosecutors had lodged plausible allegations against him.

Storm and fellow co-founder Roman Semenov were charged last August with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

Judge Failla said at this stage she “cannot simply accept Mr. Storm’s narrative that he is being prosecuted merely for writing code,” adding she was convinced Tornado Cash was different from other financial services or money-transmitting firms

Based on the charges, the platform “was not an altruistic venture” either, Judge Failla said. She noted the Justice Department’s accusation that Tornado Cash got nearly $1 million in funding from a venture capital firm with the expectation it would get a cut of profits.

Jake Chervinsky, the chief legal officer of crypto venture firm Variant, wrote on X that Judge Failla’s ruling was “an assault on the freedom of software developers everywhere.”

“This will go down in history as a perversion of law and a travesty of justice,” he added. “It will go down on appeal, if that’s what it takes.”

Storm — who has pleaded not guilty — argued in his March dismissal bid that Tornado Cash was open source and not under his control. He positioned himself as a developer who made software “to provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users.”

Prosecutors opposed the bid, contesting the characterization of Tornado Cash and alleged Storm “reaped millions of dollars in profits” while knowing the platform was being used for illicit money laundering.

Storm’s trial is slated for Dec. 2. He faces a maximum possible sentence of 45 years in prison if found guilty on all three charges.

Tornado Cash’s third co-founder, Alexey Pertsev, was found guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through the platform at the Netherlands ‘s-Hertogenbosch Court of Appeal in May and was sentenced to five years and four months in prison.

He is preparing an appeal to the conviction.

Semonov, a Russian national, is still at large.

Magazine: Tornado Cash 2.0 — The race to build safe and legal coin mixers

Update (Sept. 27, 1 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information throughout.

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