Roman Storm Guilty of Unlicensed Money Transmitting Conspiracy in Partial Verdict

NEW YORK — Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm has been found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, a Manhattan jury decided Wednesday.

The jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the remaining charges, conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate international sanctions, despite four days of deliberations after the three-week trial. A sentencing date has not yet been set, and it is currently unclear whether prosecutors will elect to re-try Storm on the remaining charges. Prosecutors told the court on Wednesday afternoon that they will confer internally and decide.

“We are grateful the jury did not convict Roman for violating sanctions or laundering money,” said Brian Klein, a partner at Waymaker LLP and a lawyer for Storm. “There are serious legal issues with the sole remaining count involving unlicensed money transmission. We will not stop fighting for Roman and expect him to be fully vindicated.”

Storm was arrested in 2023 and charged with helping hackers and other cyber criminals, including North Korea’s famed hacking squad, the Lazarus Group, launder more than $1 billion in dirty money through Tornado Cash, the crypto privacy tool he helped develop.

“Today’s verdict is a mixed bag for crypto,” said Alex Urbelis, general counsel for the Ethereum Name Service. “The hung jury shows real skepticism about the money laundering and sanctions charges, but I’m disappointed by the conviction for operating an unlicensed money transmitter. This is a complex area where legal nuance and technical understanding matter. I’m not convinced the jury fully understood the crucial divide between custodial and non-custodial systems—a distinction that, if properly recognized, should make a conviction here impossible.”

After the jury read the verdict, prosecutors moved for Storm, who is currently out on bail, to be remanded to prison to await sentencing, arguing that “he is from Russia” (Storm was born in Kazakhstan and is a U.S. citizen who has lived in Seattle, Washington for over a decade), “has advised people how to cheat the immigration system” and has the financial means to flee the country, according to reports from Inner City Press.

Storm’s lawyers pushed back, arguing that the developer is not a flight risk. Keri Axel, a partner at Waymaker and a lawyer for Storm told District Judge Katherine Polke Failla of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) that Storm surrendered his passport and has deep family ties — including joint custody of a five-year-old daughter in Washington state, where he lives, and extended family in Sacramento, California — to the United States.

Failla ultimately sided with Storm’s lawyers, arguing that she did not think Storm was a flight risk since he was only convicted on one charge.

“He may appeal, he has every incentive to stay and fight,” Failla said. “He is not a risk of flight, given the size of the bond. There is a lot of fighting left in this case before sentencing, and I think Mr. Storm will stay for it.”

Amanda Tuminelli, executive director and chief legal officer at the DeFi Education Fund, said that the organization will continue to support Storm as he fights the conviction on the money transmitting business charge, calling it “fundamentally flawed charge from the start.”

“It is incredibly disappointing that the jury hung on the other two counts…because they also rest on the inaccurate, dangerous, and limitless pricniple that a software dev can be held responsible for third parties’ use of their code. But it is not surprising the jury could not agree on those two counts – the DOJ made a ton of mistakes and they should not retry Roman on those charges,” Tuminelli said in an X post. “It is now the Trump DOJ – not the Biden DOJ – who has a decision to make, and they absolutely can and should choose NOT to allow SDNY to pursue this case further.”

The verdict in Storm’s case comes just a week after the developers of Samourai Wallet, a Bitcoin-focused privacy tool similar to Tornado Cash, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The developers, Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill, changed their initial ‘not guilty’ pleas after reaching a deal with prosecutors that saw the heftier money laundering conspiracy charges dropped.