Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s defense team has filed a new set of documents seeking to quash the developer’s trial before it begins.
Following the government’s response to a motion to dismiss Storm’s trial, Storm’s lawyers refiled their response on Friday, arguing that the case against him should be dismissed on the grounds that the government did not do enough to prove he was actively involved in the crime. prosecution.
“In fact, as the government acknowledged, when criminals began misusing it, the Tornado Cash protocol was immutable and available to anyone with an internet connection,” the motion says.
Much of the filing challenges government regulations that characterize Tornado Cash as a “money transmission business.” The claim also caught the attention of Senators Ron Wyden and Cynthia Lummis. The argument was made in Storm’s motion, which included a letter objecting to the government’s interpretation. Characterizing Tornado as a money conduit “… runs counter to due process, rules of leniency, and rules for new structures,” Storm’s lawyers argue.
On the other hand, Storm’s lawyers argued that government prosecutors should be forced to enter into specific correspondence with Dutch authorities and that the seizure of Storm’s cryptocurrency hard wallets amounted to a “wholesale assault on the Fourth Amendment.”
“The government should not be allowed to use Storm’s private keys to comb the blockchain to seize ‘everything’ it believes is Storm’s cryptocurrency and transfer that cryptocurrency to its own wallets,” Storm’s lawyers said. “He claims. The government itself has acknowledged that it is unclear how to link recovered cryptocurrencies to alleged illegal activity. “Instead, the government simply went on a fishing expedition to see if it could find evidence of a crime,” the filing states.
Storm’s initial motion to dismiss garnered support in the form of an amicus brief from three cryptocurrency advocacy groups, and his general cause was championed among many cryptocurrency investors who collectively raised millions of dollars for Storm’s defense. .
But the government’s filing opposing Storm’s motion to dismiss points out how rare pretrial dismissals are in cases like this. The prosecution argued, “In fact, most of the defendant’s arguments in support of the dismissal of the indictment consist of factual arguments that are more suitable for jury speech than the argument that the indictment is legally insufficient.”
A hearing on Roman Storm’s motion is scheduled for July 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.
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