The judge overseeing the U.S. criminal trial of Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm indicated that she is "inclined" not to allow references to the 2022 sanctions against the cryptocurrency mixing service in court.
According to Inner City Press on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Katherine Failla for the Southern District of New York stated that she is unlikely to approve a motion to prohibit mentioning North Korea and the Lazarus Group hackers in the prosecution's case against Storm. However, the judge reportedly expressed that she is "inclined to exclude the sanctions from August 2022, as they were later lifted."
The sanctions in question refer to the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) adding addresses associated with Tornado Cash to its Specially Designated Nationals list in 2022. However, after a federal judge ordered the sanctions to be lifted as part of a civil case brought by Tornado Cash users, OFAC made concessions regarding the cryptocurrency mixer in March.
According to Inner City Press, Failla stated, "The sanctions have been lifted. So [Storm] has a guilty conscience about something he ultimately did not commit."
Storm was indicted in August 2023 for money laundering, conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Failla is expected to rule on which witnesses will be allowed to testify before Monday, when the trial of the Tornado Cash co-founder is scheduled to begin.
The criminal case against Storm has prompted many prominent figures in the cryptocurrency and blockchain industry to call for the charges to be dropped, echoing similar sentiments of "writing code is not a crime."
The Ethereum Foundation, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, and Paradigm founder Matt Huang contributed thousands of dollars to the legal fund for the Tornado Cash co-founder ahead of the trial.
Assuming everything proceeds as planned, Storm's criminal trial could be one of the most significant legal events impacting the cryptocurrency industry, following the conviction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and the sentencing of former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and former Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky.
Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon is also facing federal charges related to securities fraud, commodities fraud, market manipulation, and money laundering after being extradited from Montenegro to the U.S.
Related: Trump says Musk's formation of a new party to counter the Republicans is "off the rails."
Original article: “Judge Suggests Tornado Cash Sanctions May Be Banned from Mention in Roman Storm Trial”
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