The judge ruled that OFAC's revocation of sanctions against Tornado Cash cannot be used as a basis for the trial

According to CoinDesk, Federal Judge Katherine Polk Failed of the Southern District of New York has ruled to prohibit the discussion of OFAC's sanctions history against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm in the upcoming trial. The judge believes that explaining to the jury the process of imposing sanctions in 2022, revoking them in March 2023, and being ruled illegal by the Texas court will cause "confusion of thought," but reserves the possibility of re discussing if key evidence arises. The prosecution is allowed to use evidence extracted from the co developer Alexey Pertsev's phone, but cannot accuse Storm of violating the Bank Secrecy Act - only expert witnesses can prove that it "could have implemented but did not adopt" KYC/AML measures. The judge also rejected the defendant's motion to exclude evidence related to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group and prohibited Storm from using the First Amendment as a defense. The final pre-trial conference will be held via conference call at 3pm Eastern Time on Friday.