US prosecutors seek October retrial for Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are seeking a second trial for Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm after a jury last year failed to reach a unanimous verdict on two of the charges brought against him.

In a letter submitted Monday to US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors asked the court to schedule a retrial on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate US sanctions. 

The request was made by US Attorney for Manhattan Jay Clayton, who said the government intends to retry Storm on Counts One and Three of the superseding indictment.

Prosecutors proposed beginning the proceedings on or about Oct. 5 or Oct. 12, with the trial expected to run for roughly three weeks. 

According to the filing, the government would have been prepared to retry the case earlier in the year, between March and May, but Storm’s legal team indicated they would not be available until late 2026.

Storm’s trail reaches an impasse

Storm helped develop Tornado Cash, a non-custodial cryptocurrency mixing protocol that US authorities have accused of facilitating the laundering of more than $1 billion in illicit funds. 

In August, following a four-week trial in Manhattan, a jury convicted him of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. 

Jurors, however, were unable to agree on the two additional conspiracy charges tied to money laundering and sanctions violations, prompting the court to declare a mistrial on those counts.

Because the jury did not reach a unanimous decision, prosecutors are legally permitted to retry the unresolved charges before a new jury.

The government’s filing estimates that the retrial would take about three weeks to complete.

The Justice Department acknowledged in its letter that Storm currently has a pending Rule 29 motion seeking a judgment of acquittal on the money transmitting conviction, which is scheduled to be argued on April 9. 

Prosecutors nonetheless asked the court to set a retrial date in advance, arguing that doing so could prevent further scheduling conflicts and delays.

Storm’s defence team has pushed back on the idea of fixing a new trial date before the motion is resolved, telling prosecutors that doing so would be premature while the court is still considering whether the earlier conviction should stand.

Public reaction to the retrial request has been swift within parts of the crypto industry.

Miller Whitehouse Levine, chief executive of the Solana Policy Institute, described the government’s move as “depressing” in a post on X. 

Storm himself also responded on social media, arguing that the government is attempting to pursue a different outcome after the first jury failed to agree on the more serious charges.

“The 2 counts = up to 40 years in federal prison. For writing open source code. For a protocol I don't control. For transactions I never touched. A jury already couldn't agree this was criminal. But the SDNY prosecutors want to keep trying with the hope of getting a different answer,” Storm wrote on X.

If a future jury were to convict Storm on both charges, the combined statutory maximum sentence could reach 40 years in federal prison. 

The court has not yet ruled on the government’s request to schedule the retrial, and the outcome of Storm’s pending acquittal motion could influence how the case proceeds in the coming months.