Tornado Cash dev Roman Storm trial goes ahead with slight trim

Published

5 months ago

May 16, 2025

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Tornado Cash dev Roman Storm trial goes ahead with slight trim

US federal prosecutors are pressing ahead with their case against Tornado Cash founder Roman Storm, but will drop a small part of their indictment after the Department of Justice rolled back its crypto enforcement last month.

Jay Clayton, the acting US Attorney for Manhattan, told federal court judge Katherine Polk Failla in a May 15 letter that the charges against Storm still stand, bar one part of a conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business charge.

“After review of this case, this Office and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General have determined that this prosecution is consistent with the letter and spirit of the April 7, 2025 Memorandum from the Deputy Attorney General,” Clayton wrote.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s April memo said the Justice Department would end the so-called “regulation by prosecution” of crypto, and added that the agency wouldn’t prosecute crypto mixers like Tornado Cash “for the acts of their end users or unwitting violations of regulations.”

Clayton added that the indictment against Storm will cut the accusation that he failed to comply with money transmitting business registration requirements.

Prosecutors were pursuing that charge as part of their allegation that Storm conspired to run Tornado Cash as an unlicensed money transmitter.

The government will still push ahead with the charge under the accusation that Storm transmitted funds while knowing they were derived from a criminal offence or were intended to support unlawful activity.

The Justice Department alleged that Tornado Cash helped launder over $1 billion worth of crypto, including for the sanctioned North Korean state-backed hacking collective the Lazarus Group.

Clayton said the Justice Department will also still pursue the other two charges in its indictment, one count of money laundering conspiracy and one count of conspiracy to violate US sanctions.

The money laundering and sanctions violations conspiracy charges each carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, while the unlicensed money transmitter conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years.

Storm has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is scheduled for July 14. He was charged alongside fellow founder Roman Semenov, who is at large and believed to be in his native Russia.

Blanche memo cited in bids to toss

Other crypto executives facing charges have pointed to Blanche’s memo in a bid to have their cases dismissed.

Crypto mixer Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Hill had pointed to the memo to try to dismiss their charges of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitter and money laundering conspiracy.

Braden John Karony, the CEO of crypto firm SafeMoon, has also cited the memo in an attempt to have the charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy against him dismissed.

Legal Panel: XRP win leaves Ripple a ‘bad actor’ with no crypto legal precedent set

Politics

Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was handing FTX to new CEO before bankruptcy

Published

1 hour ago

October 4, 2025

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Bankman-Fried says his biggest mistake was handing FTX to new CEO before bankruptcy

Sam Bankman-Fried claimed that handing over FTX to its current CEO was the “single biggest mistake” that prevented him from saving the exchange.

Politics

Kemi Badenoch says Tories will quit ECHR if they win next election

Published

7 hours ago

October 4, 2025

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Kemi Badenoch says Tories will quit ECHR if they win next election

The Conservative Party will leave a key human rights treaty if it wins the election, its leader Kemi Badenoch has said.

Ms Badenoch announced the policy to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) ahead of the Conservative Party’s conference next week.

Despite many Tory MPs having expressed displeasure with the treaty, and the court that upholds treaty rights in recent years, it had not been party policy for the UK to exit it.

The move follows a review on the impact of the UK’s ECHR membership conducted by shadow attorney general Baron Wolfson.

Lord Wolfson’s nearly 200-page report said the ECHR had impacted government policy in numerous areas.

The report said this includes limiting government’s ability to address immigration issues, potentially hampering restrictions on climate change policy, and impacting government ability to prioritise British citizens for social housing and public services.

But leaving the ECHR would “not be a panacea to all the issues that have arisen in recent years”, Lord Wolfson said.

It comes after the Reform Party in August said they would take the UK out of the ECHR if elected.

The Conservatives have increasingly come under threat from Reform and are being trailed in the polls by them.

What is the ECHR?

The ECHR was established in the 1950s, drafted in the aftermath of the Second World War and the Holocaust, to protect people from serious human rights violations, with Sir Winston Churchill as a driving force.

It’s 18 sections guarantee rights such as the right to life, the prohibition of torture, the right to a fair trial, the right to private and family life and the right to freedom of expression.

It has been used to halt the deportation of migrants in 13 out of 29 UK cases since 1980.

A political issue

Leaving the ECHR would breach the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the peace settlement deal between the British and Irish governments on how Northern Ireland should be governed.

Labour has in recent days said it was considering how Article 3, the prohibition on torture, and Article 8,
the right to respect for private and family life, are interpreted. The sections have been used to halt deportation attempts.

The Liberal Democrats and Greens are in favour of the ECHR.

A general election is not expected until 2029.