US Court Delays Trial of Tornado Cash Co-Founder

The Southern District Court of New York has granted a request by the defense of Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm to postpone proceedings by three months, as reported by The Block.

Lawyers cited “complex and novel legal and factual issues,” “millions of pages of documents,” many of which are in Russian and require translation. The attorneys also argued they need additional time to work with experts planned to be called to testify.

The prosecution contended that the defense is “significantly inflating” the volume of documents.

“Moreover, the public strongly supports a speedy trial, given the interest this case has generated among various stakeholders,” the document states.

The trial was initially scheduled for September 23. The court has now moved the date to December 2.

In August 2022, the OFAC added the Tornado Cash website to its sanctions list, alleging that criminals laundered over $7 billion in cryptocurrency through the platform. More than $455 million of this is linked to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus Group.

That same month, Dutch authorities arrested mixer developer Alexey Pertsev.

On May 14, 2024, he was found guilty of laundering $1.2 billion through Tornado Cash and sentenced to 64 months in prison. In July, the court denied Pertsev bail pending an appeal.

Storm and another co-founder of the mixer, Roman Semenov, also face charges in the US for money laundering and sanctions violations.

Earlier, the first was released on bail, having refused to plead guilty. Semenov remains free but has come under sanctions.