Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, will face trial after a judge denied his motion to dismiss criminal charges related to his role in creating the crypto-mixing platform. On Sept. 26, New York District Court Judge Katherine Polk Failla ruled against dismissing the three federal charges brought by U.S. prosecutors, which include conspiracy to commit money laundering, sanctions violations, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
Storm and co-founder Roman Semenov was charged in August, and Judge Failla rejected Storm’s defense that he was being prosecuted simply for writing code. She emphasized that Tornado Cash was not a typical financial service and was not an altruistic project, citing the Justice Department’s claim that the platform received nearly $1 million from venture capital with profit-sharing expectations.
Crypto venture firm Variant’s chief legal officer, Jake Chervinsky, criticized the ruling, calling it “an assault on the freedom of software developers” and suggesting the case could be overturned on appeal. Storm, who has pleaded not guilty, argued that Tornado Cash is open-source and beyond his control, designed to provide financial privacy to legitimate cryptocurrency users.
Prosecutors, however, allege that Storm profited millions while knowingly facilitating illicit money laundering. His trial is set for Dec. 2, and if convicted, he faces up to 45 years in prison. Tornado Cash’s third co-founder, Alexey Pertsev, was previously sentenced to over five years for laundering $1.2 billion and is appealing his conviction.
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