tl;dr
A U.S. district court judge, Katherine Polk Failla, ruled that the money laundering case against Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, will proceed. The ruling denied Storm's motion to dismiss the case, finding that prosecutors had plausible charges related to operating an unlicensed money transm...
A U.S. district court judge, Katherine Polk Failla, has ruled that the money laundering case against Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, will proceed. The ruling denied Storm's motion to dismiss the case, finding that prosecutors had plausible charges related to operating an unlicensed money transmitter, facilitating money laundering, and sanctions evasion. The judge emphasized that the ruling assessed the merits of the charges, not Storm's guilt.
The case revolves around Tornado Cash, a coin-mixing service used for anonymous Ethereum transactions, which was sanctioned for aiding money laundering. Failla also denied Storm's motion to compel the Department of Justice and Dutch authorities to turn over communications, stating that the information sought did not show a strong indication of aiding his defense. Additionally, the ruling clarified that the functional capacity of computer code is not protected under the First Amendment, rejecting the argument that code used for directing computer functions constitutes protected speech.
Coin-mixing service Tornado Cash is used to send and receive Ethereum anonymously and was sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in 2022. Failla also denied Storm’s motion to compel the Department of Justice and Dutch authorities to turn over communications between them, stating that Storm had not demonstrated a strong indication that the information he seeks would aid his defense.
In April, a Dutch court found Tornado Cash developer Alexey Perstev guilty of money laundering and sentenced him to 64 months in jail. Crypto advocates have warned that the case against Tornado Cash developers could chill free speech, with developers prosecuted for launching crypto projects. While the courts have found that some computer code is “expressive” and as such, protected speech, Failla said that the “functional capacity” of code is not protected under the First Amendment.
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