Roman Storm, co-founder of crypto mixing service Tornado Cash, could request a mistrial after his defence argued that a key government witness’s testimony was unrelated to the case. Storm’s legal team raised the issue before Manhattan federal judge Katherine Polk Failla on Monday, questioning whether the inclusion of the testimony constituted a judicial error.
A mistrial, if granted, would render the current trial invalid and could either lead to a retrial or a full dismissal. Storm, who faces up to 45 years in prison, was charged in 2023 with conspiring to launder money, violating U.S. sanctions, and running an unlicensed money transmission business.
Witness claims scam funds went through tornado cash
On Tuesday, government witness Hanfeng Lin took the stand, recounting how she lost $190,000 in a crypto romance scam. Lin explained she had been tricked into transferring Bitcoin to a fake trading platform after meeting someone online via WhatsApp in 2022.
She later hired crypto recovery firm Payback, which told her that a portion of her funds had been routed through Tornado Cash. However, Storm’s defence attorney David Patton argued that this link couldn’t be verified.
FBI agent says he didn’t examine the transactions
The defence also questioned FBI Special Agent Joseph DeCapua, a government crypto tracing expert, who confirmed he hadn’t been asked to specifically investigate Lin’s transactions.
Storm’s legal team was expecting DeCapua to draw a direct connection between Lin’s stolen Bitcoin and Tornado Cash. Instead, prosecutors now plan to introduce IRS analyst Stephan George, another crypto expert, to establish the disputed link.
Crypto community disputes Tornado Cash involvement
Blockchain investigators have weighed in, casting further doubt on the prosecution’s claims. MetaMask security researcher Taylor Monahan traced Lin’s transactions and concluded that her funds never interacted with Tornado Cash.
According to Monahan, the scammers swapped Lin’s stolen Bitcoin for Ether, and the transaction became bundled with others that Payback allegedly misattributed to Tornado Cash. Independent analyst ZachXBT backed Monahan’s findings and criticised Payback’s tracing.
[I don’t know] how you mess up the tracing that bad, ZachXBT wrote on X, suggesting Payback followed the wrong wallet path in their blockchain analysis.
Background and what’s next
Roman Storm is on trial alongside co-founder Roman Semenov, who has yet to appear in court and is believed to be residing in Russia. The case has drawn attention for its implications on open-source development, crypto privacy tools, and the legal definition of money laundering in decentralised finance.
It remains to be seen whether Judge Failla will allow a mistrial motion or if IRS analyst George’s upcoming testimony will influence the case’s direction. For now, the defence appears committed to discrediting the government’s narrative, arguing that Lin’s story, emotional though it may be has no clear tie to Tornado Cash.