The lawyers for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm have filed accusations against the US Department of Justice, claiming that incorrect evidence was submitted in his case. According to the defense, the prosecution misidentified messages in the Telegram messenger, which could have influenced the grand jury’s decision and violated federal rules of evidence.
This is reported by Business • Media
Controversial Message and Its Impact on the Trial
A key point was a message forwarded in 2020 by programmer Alexey Pertsev – another figure in the Tornado Cash case. In this message, a journalist inquired about the possible use of Tornado Cash for money laundering. However, in the prosecution’s materials, this fragment was presented as an initiative of the developers themselves, which the defense argues misled the jurors.
The defense emphasized the absence of metadata for the Telegram chats in the documents provided by the prosecution. In September 2023, the investigation only submitted incomplete logs, which did not indicate that the message was forwarded rather than written personally by one of the defendants. It was only in December 2024 that the lawyers received a corrected version, but the public only became aware of this now.
Positions of the Parties and Legal Risks
The prosecution confirmed the existence of inaccuracies in the initial documents, acknowledging that the logs did not contain information about the forwarding. At the same time, investigators insist that the defense received correct data before the trial began, and the attempt to contest the evidence a few days before the hearings is contrived. Representatives of the Department of Justice claim that these errors do not affect the authenticity of the evidence.
Storm’s lawyers emphasize that the lack of reliable attribution contradicts federal authentication rules. Andrew Rossow, one of the attorneys, pointed out that the prosecution’s acknowledgment could strengthen the defense’s position. He reminded that according to the precedent “Brady v. Maryland,” the prosecution must timely disclose any errors in the evidence.
The defense believes it represents “a distorted interpretation of the forwarded message.”
Roman Storm is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating sanctions due to his activities in Tornado Cash. Although some charges against him have already been dropped, US authorities continue to insist on accountability for money laundering. Storm’s lawyers from Waymaker LLP and Hecker Fink LLP are seeking to exclude the disputed evidence from the case materials.
At the time of preparing this publication, the US Department of Justice had not provided official comments on the situation.