Request to dismiss case against Roman Storm denied: developments in the investigation and possible consequences.
Roman Storm, one of the founders and developers of the mixing service Tornado Cash, will face a criminal trial after a judge rejected the motion to dismiss the case filed by his lawyers against the United States government. The decision was made during a telephone conference on September 26, where District Judge Katherine Polk Failla found the prosecutors’ accusations plausible.
Storm, along with co-founder Roman Semenov, was indicted last August on three counts: conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate sanctions, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. According to prosecutors, Tornado Cash was allegedly used to facilitate large-scale money laundering through the use of cryptocurrencies.
Storm’s defense
Storm stated that he only wrote open-source code and had no control over how it was used. He then argued that the goal of his work was to offer greater privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users, not to facilitate misuse of the platform. However, authorities claim that Storm would have made substantial profits from the platform, aware of its use for money laundering.
Reactions
Jake Chervinsky, chief legal officer of a venture capital firm, expressed concerns about the court’s decision. Chervinsky described the ruling as “an assault on software developers’ freedom” and predicted that the issue could be subject to appeal.
The community has shown support for Storm, raising $2.3 million to fund a legal defense for Tornado Cash developers. Based on the charges, Storm could face a maximum sentence of up to 45 years in prison if found guilty on all counts. The trial is set for December 2.
Other legal developments
Last May, the third co-founder of Tornado Cash, Alexey Pertsev, was sentenced in the Netherlands by the Court of Appeal of ‘s-Hertogenbosch to 64 months in prison for laundering approximately $1.2 billion. Pertsev is preparing an appeal against the conviction. Roman Semenov, a Russian citizen, currently remains at large.
