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

Twister Money developer Roman Storm’s trial adopted the legislation and the choose overseeing his case mustn’t take into account acquitting him of all costs, federal prosecutors mentioned.

In a post-trial submitting final Wednesday, attorneys from the Justice Division’s Southern District of New York workplace opposed Storm’s movement for acquittal. They are saying they’ve confirmed with ample proof that he constructed and managed Twister Money, the crypto-mixing service as soon as sanctioned by the US for its use by North Korea and different actors.

In late September, Storm’s attorneys filed a post-trial movement arguing that District Decide Katherine Polk Failla ought to acquit him of all costs – not simply the conspiracy to commit a cost and not using a cash switch license for which he had been convicted, but additionally the 2 stalled costs, conspiracy to launder cash and conspiracy to violate the Sanctions Act. In that procedural submitting, the protection argued that prosecutors didn’t have adequate proof to truly help a conviction on any cost.

In Wednesday’s submitting, prosecutors mentioned their proof was certainly adequate to indicate that Storm co-founded Twister Money and developed options that he knew would assist cybercriminals.

“Defendant’s management was neither passive nor incidental: he and his co-conspirators modified the consumer interface roughly 250 instances between February 26, 2020 and August 8, 2022 (Tr. 1063-64, 1078-79), controlling the means by which the overwhelming majority of customers accessed the Twister Money Service (Tr. 1049, 1182). Not less than 96 p.c of Twister Money customers accessed the Twister Money service by way of the consumer interface (Tr. 1049, 1182),” the submitting mentioned, citing elements of the transcript of the four-week trial.

The submitting additionally argued that prosecutors had adequate proof to help their conspiracy to commit cash laundering and their conspiracy to violate sanctions, and that the choose mustn’t acquit on both depend.

Storm’s attorneys have till subsequent Wednesday to file a response.