US Prosecutors Reject Tornado Cash Founder’s Defense Amid Push For October Retrial

US Southern District of New York (SDNY) prosecutors have pushed back on the Tornado Cash co-founder’s defense, claiming that his arguments for dismissal lack applicability ahead of a crucial hearing later this week.

DOJ Says Tornado Cash Founder’s Defense Is ‘Not Applicable’

On Tuesday, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton sent a letter to Judge Katherine Failla rejecting Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s recent letter in support of his motion for a judgment of acquittal.

Clayton’s response addressed an April 2 motion filed by Storm’s defense, which claimed that a 2026 Supreme Court case, Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, supported his pending Rule 29 motion.

The Cox case involved a civil liability of an internet service provider for its subscribers engaging in copyright infringement. The Supreme Court found that Cox was not contributorily liable for copyright infringement on its users’ accounts, as it did not induce its users’ infringement nor provide a service tailored to infringement.

In the Tuesday filing, the US attorney argued that “The defendant and the Tornado Cash service are a far cry from Cox,” affirming that “Even if Cox had some applicability here, its reasoning offers no help to the defendant given the strikingly different facts at issue.”

“As set forth in detail in the Government’s response to the defendant’s Rule 29 motion— and in contrast to Cox’s robust system for responding to infringement—the defendant intentionally implemented mere half-measures that he said were ‘easy to bypass’ to counter criminal use of the Tornado Cash service, and his purpose in doing so was to distract law enforcement,” the document read.

Clayton added that Storm’s use of the crypto mixer “was window dressing at best and outright misdirection at worst,” as there was no evidence that the Tornado Cash founders put in place effective anti-money-laundering (AML) measures.

It’s worth noting that the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 for failing to impose effective controls to prevent malicious actors from laundering funds through the protocol, including $455 million by the North Korea-linked hacking group, Lazarus Group.

However, the sanctions were overturned in March 2025 after the Court of Appeals ruled in November 2024 that OFAC had overstepped its authority by sanctioning immutable, decentralized smart contracts rather than a legal entity.

US Prosecutors Seek Roman Storm Retrial

The prosecutors’ latest move follows his March letter seeking a retrial of the Tornado Cash co-founder on the two counts where jurors were deadlocked last August. In the letter, Clayton asked Judge Failla to schedule a retrial for Roman Storm, pushing for trial dates between October 5 and 12, 2026.

For context, Storm was detained and indicted following the Tornado Cash sanctions and charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.

The jury found Storm guilty of one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, but was unable to come to a unanimous decision regarding the two other charges. Nonetheless, a hung jury does not constitute an acquittal, which opened the door to a potential retrial on those charges.

In September, Storm filed a motion for acquittal, which asks the trial judge to throw out charges or a verdict because the prosecution’s evidence is legally insufficient. The Tornado Cash founder’s lawyers argued that the government never proved he meant to help bad actors launder money through the platform, which would invalidate the grounds for his conviction based on negligent inaction.

Now, prosecutors and Storm’s defense attorneys are scheduled to meet on April 9 for an oral argument on the pending Rule 29 motion, which could shape the course of this key legal battle.