Judge delays Roman Storm retrial to April 26, 2027 — Rule 29 motion still pending A U.S. federal judge has pushed the retrial of Tornado Cash co‑founder Roman Storm to April 26, 2027, delaying the second go‑round by roughly six months. The postponement, ordered Aug. 25 by U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla, comes while Storm’s motion to overturn an earlier conviction remains undecided. Why the delay - Storm’s defense asked for a later date citing scheduling conflicts and the pending Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal. Prosecutors had preferred an October 2026 trial date, but Judge Failla adopted the defense’s request and reset pretrial deadlines around the new timetable. - Expert disclosures are now slated for early 2027, and a final pretrial conference is set for April 20, 2027 — six days before jury selection. What’s unresolved - The Rule 29 motion, filed by Storm on Sept. 30, 2025, argues that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money‑transmitting business. Failla heard oral arguments on April 9, 2026, but has not ruled. - If granted, the motion would vacate Storm’s conviction on that count. If denied, that conviction would stand as prosecutors retry two counts the first jury deadlocked on: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Recap of the first trial - Storm’s summer 2025 trial in Manhattan covered three charges tied to his role in Tornado Cash, an Ethereum‑based privacy protocol he co‑founded. - On Aug. 6, 2025, jurors returned a split verdict: guilty on the unlicensed money‑transmitting conspiracy (maximum five years’ imprisonment) but deadlocked on the money‑laundering and sanctions conspiracy counts (each carrying up to 20 years). Judge Failla declared a mistrial on the two unresolved counts and prosecutors opted to retry them. - Storm warned that convictions on both unresolved counts could expose him to as much as 40 years in prison. He also said the first four‑week trial had exhausted his legal resources. Prosecutors’ case and earlier narrowing - The indictment dates to August 2023 and names Storm alongside co‑founder Roman Semenov. Prosecutors allege Tornado Cash processed more than $1 billion in proceeds, including funds linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, and claim the founders continued developing, promoting and profiting from the protocol despite knowing illicit use. - In May 2025 prosecutors narrowed part of their money‑transmission theory by dropping an allegation tied to failure to register under 18 U.S.C. § 1960(b)(1)(B), a move they said aligned with a Justice Department policy memo advising against using technical registration charges to police crypto. Sanctions and legal context - The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 for alleged use in laundering billions, including funds tied to Lazarus. That designation later became the subject of separate litigation. - In November 2024 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that immutable Tornado Cash smart contracts could not be treated as property under IEEPA, because they could not be owned or controlled. Treasury removed the OFAC designation on March 21, 2025. The sanction changes did not end the criminal case against Storm. - A Coin Center lawsuit related to the designation was closed after the government stopped defending the designation. Central legal question: developer liability - At the heart of the prosecution and defense is a thorny question for crypto law: how much control or involvement by a developer turns open‑source work into criminal facilitation? - Prosecutors say Storm and other founders went beyond publishing code, maintaining parts of the project, promoting its use and profiting while knowing about illicit flows. Storm’s lawyers counter that Tornado Cash operates via immutable smart contracts, that developers don’t control or custody funds, and that users transact directly with contracts. Community response and funding - The case has drawn attention and financial support from parts of the Ethereum community. In January 2026, Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin publicly urged leniency and argued that privacy tools have lawful uses and open‑source development alone should not be criminal. - Storm’s legal defense has raised more than $6.3 million, with the Ethereum Foundation having pledged up to $1 million in matching support. Storm remains free on bond pending further proceedings. What’s next - Judge Failla has not yet ruled on the Rule 29 motion. If denied, the retrial on the money‑laundering and sanctions counts will proceed beginning April 26, 2027, following the April 20 pretrial conference. If granted, one of Storm’s convictions could be vacated, potentially narrowing or changing the government’s path forward. Implications - The case continues to test how U.S. criminal law applies to decentralized protocols and the liabilities of developers who create privacy‑preserving tools. The outcome of the Rule 29 motion and the April 2027 retrial will be closely watched by the crypto industry, developers and legal observers. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news