Federal prosecutors have requested a Manhattan judge to retry Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on money laundering and sanctions conspiracy charges in October 2026, after a jury deadlocked on those counts last August while convicting him of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
The March 9 filing seeks trial dates of October 5 or 12, even as the U.S. Treasury published a report days earlier recognizing that crypto mixers can serve legitimate financial privacy purposes, highlighting policy tensions within the same administration.
Retrial Request and Legal Context
Prosecution’s Filing
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a letter on March 9, 2026, requesting that Judge Katherine Polk Failla set a retrial date for Storm on counts one and three of the superseding indictment: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Each charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Prosecutors proposed October 5 or 12 as start dates, aligning with availability windows the defense had previously indicated. The government stated it is prepared to proceed with a retrial expected to last approximately three weeks.
Jury Deadlock in August 2025
A Manhattan jury found Storm guilty on August 6, 2025, of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, a charge carrying a maximum sentence of five years. However, jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict on the two more serious conspiracy charges after four days of deliberations, including an Allen charge from the judge urging continued efforts.
In U.S. federal trials, a hung jury on specific counts allows the government to retry those charges before a new jury, as double jeopardy protections do not apply when no verdict was reached.
Defense Arguments and Pending Motion
Storm’s legal team has filed a Rule 29 motion requesting that the judge overturn the guilty verdict on grounds of insufficient evidence. Oral argument is scheduled for April 9, 2026. The defense contends that setting a retrial date is premature while this motion remains pending, a position the government disputes.
Prosecutors wrote: “While the Government is aware that the defendant’s Rule 29 motion is currently pending, the Government requests that the Court set a date for the retrial to avoid further unnecessary delays.”
Trial Evidence and Arguments
Prosecution’s Case
During the four-week trial last summer, prosecutors argued that Storm knowingly operated Tornado Cash as a tool for cybercriminals. They presented internal messages and evidence that at least 96 percent of users accessed the service through a website Storm and his co-conspirators controlled and updated more than 250 times.
The government maintained that Storm transmitted funds he knew were linked to criminal activity, alleging that approximately $7 billion had been laundered through the protocol since 2019, including by North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
Defense Position
The defense argued that Tornado Cash is permissionless, immutable software that Storm could not control once deployed. They contended that writing and publishing open-source code should not constitute criminal conduct, regardless of how third parties might use it.
Policy Context and Administration Signals
Treasury Mixer Report
The DOJ’s retrial request came two days after the U.S. Treasury submitted a report to Congress under the GENIUS Act acknowledging that “lawful users of digital assets may leverage mixers to enable financial privacy” when transacting on public blockchains. The March 7 report stated that individuals may use mixers to protect sensitive information on personal wealth, business payments, or charitable donations.
This recognition marks a notable shift from the Treasury’s 2022 sanctioning of Tornado Cash, which was later ruled unlawful and lifted in March 2025 after a federal appeals court questioned OFAC’s authority to sanction open-source smart contracts.
DOJ Enforcement Philosophy
The prosecution’s decision to pursue retrial tests the limits of the Trump administration’s crypto enforcement posture. In April 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum directing the DOJ to stop “regulation by prosecution” of digital assets.
Prosecutors responded by dropping the FinCEN registration portion of the money transmitting charge before trial but retained allegations involving known criminal conduct. The government’s push to retry the money laundering and sanctions counts suggests it views the Blanche Memo as limited to regulatory violations, not cases involving alleged facilitation of criminal activity.
Pardon Signals for Similar Cases
In December 2025, President Trump told Decrypt he would take a “look at” a pardon for Samourai Wallet developer Keonne Rodriguez, who was sentenced to five years in federal prison for building a Bitcoin privacy tool with similar non-custodial architecture to Tornado Cash. Rodriguez is currently serving time at FPC Morgantown.
Industry Response and Implications
Legal Defense Fund
More than 65 crypto organizations have urged President Trump to intervene in Storm’s case. The DeFi Education Fund and the Ethereum Foundation have helped push Storm’s legal defense fund past $5 million.
Storm wrote on X following the DOJ filing: “If I can’t fund a defense, they win by default. If you care about financial privacy, if you write code and believe that code is speech—this is the moment.”
Policy Incoherence Concerns
Cybercrime consultant David Sehyeon Baek characterized the situation as exposing “how incoherent U.S. crypto policy is right now.” He noted the contradiction between Treasury acknowledging lawful mixer uses and DOJ pursuing “a very aggressive criminal theory against a mixer developer, even after a jury already sent a fairly clear signal that it was not fully persuaded the first time.”
Baek warned the case appears to be an “attempt to create a precedent” holding open-source developers responsible for what strangers do with their code, adding that if the DOJ succeeds, “it will matter far more than any favorable language” in policy reports.
Legislative Response
Miller Whitehouse-Levine, CEO of the Solana Policy Institute—which pledged $500,000 to fund Storm’s legal defense—called the retrial request “depressing” and said it made passing the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act “all the more critical.”
The bipartisan bill, reintroduced in January by Senators Cynthia Lummis and Ron Wyden, would explicitly bar non-custodial developers from being classified as money transmitters under federal law, provided they cannot move user funds.
Related Cases
Roman Semenov Status
Storm’s co-founder, Roman Semenov, remains at large and has not faced trial.
Alexey Pertsev Conviction
A Dutch court convicted a third Tornado Cash developer, Alexey Pertsev, of money laundering in 2024. He is currently appealing the verdict.
FAQ: Tornado Cash Retrial
Q: What charges is Roman Storm facing in the proposed October retrial?
A: Prosecutors seek to retry Storm on two counts: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years. He was already convicted in August 2025 of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries up to five years.
Q: Why is the government allowed to retry Storm on charges where the jury deadlocked?
A: In U.S. federal trials, a hung jury on specific counts is neither a conviction nor an acquittal. Double jeopardy protections do not apply when no verdict was reached, so the government may retry those charges before a new jury.
Q: How does the Treasury’s recent mixer report relate to this case?
A: The March 7 Treasury report acknowledged that lawful users may employ crypto mixers for legitimate financial privacy purposes, such as protecting sensitive information on personal wealth or charitable donations. This recognition creates tension with DOJ’s prosecution of a mixer developer, highlighting conflicting policy signals within the same administration.
Q: What is the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act and how would it affect cases like Storm’s?
A: The bipartisan bill would explicitly bar non-custodial developers from being classified as money transmitters under federal law, provided they cannot move user funds. If passed, it could provide legal protection for open-source developers whose code is used by third parties.
