The lawyers for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm have made serious allegations against the US Department of Justice, claiming that the agency presented false evidence to the grand jury in the case concerning the activities of the cryptocurrency mixer developer.
This is reported by Finway
Key Role of Telegram Messaging in the Case
According to the defense, the prosecution incorrectly identified messages in the Telegram messenger, which served as the basis for charges of criminal intent. The motion states that the correspondence presented by the authorities was taken out of context: it was actually a journalist’s question regarding the potential use of Tornado Cash for money laundering, which was presented in the prosecution’s materials as an initiative from the developers.
The lawyers paid particular attention to the metadata of the Telegram chat. They argue that the prosecution provided incomplete logs of this chat in September 2023, which did not indicate that a key message was forwarded rather than directly written by one of the defendants. Only in December 2024 did the defense receive an updated version of the documents with correct information about the forwarding, but the public only became aware of this now.
Positions of the Parties and Legal Consequences
The prosecution acknowledged the inaccuracy in the provided logs but emphasized that the defense received the correct data before the start of the court hearings. Representatives of the Department of Justice also stated that a technical formatting error does not affect the credibility of the evidence, and they believe the defense’s attempt to contest it before the hearings is artificial.
The defense, in turn, insists that the absence of correct metadata violates federal standards for evidence authentication. Attorney Andrew Rossow emphasized that the recent acknowledgment of the prosecution’s error could strengthen the defense’s position. Citing the ruling in the case of “Brady v. Maryland,” the lawyers highlight the prosecution’s obligation to timely report any inaccuracies in the evidence.
The defense believes it represents a “distorted interpretation of the forwarded message.”
Roman Storm is currently charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and violating sanctions due to his involvement in creating the decentralized cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash. While some charges have been dropped, US authorities continue to insist on pursuing the money laundering case.
Currently, the US Department of Justice is refraining from commenting, while Storm’s lawyers from the law firms Waymaker LLP and Hecker Fink LLP are seeking to exclude the disputed evidence from the case materials.