Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s lawyers might ask for a mistrial over a government witness they claim had nothing to do with the crypto mixer.
Storm’s defence floated the idea of a mistrial with Manhattan federal judge Katherine Polk Failla on Monday, questioning the testimony of government witness Hanfeng Lin on Tuesday, Inner City Press reported.
If allowed, a mistrial ruling would see Storm’s trial considered invalid due to a judicial error — which in this case could be evidence that should have been excluded — and it could be dismissed in its entirety or retried with a new judge and jury.
Storm is facing up to 45 years in prison after being charged in 2023 with money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to violate US sanctions, and conspiring to run an unlicensed money laundering business in connection with Tornado Cash, the crypto mixing service he co-founded.
He was charged alongside fellow co-founder Roman Semenov, who has not appeared in court and is believed to be in his native Russia.
Government witness recounts crypto scam
Lin, the government’s witness, took the stand on Tuesday and delivered a testimony on how she was conned out of $190,000 by a crypto romance scammer over WhatsApp.
According to reporter David Morris, Lin was approached online by a person in 2022 who convinced her to buy Bitcoin (BTC) through a crypto exchange and withdraw it to a purported trading site which falsely showed she was making high returns, which enticed her to send more.
She said her funds were stolen, and the crypto recovery service Payback told her that some of her Bitcoin was sent through Tornado Cash.
“Based on our research over the weekend, we can’t find that any of Ms. Lin’s funds went to Tornado Cash,” Storm’s lawyer David Patton said, according to Inner City Press. “We need to confer with Mr. Storm about moving for a mistrial.”
Government expert says he didn’t look at Lin’s case
News outlet The Rage reported that Storm’s lawyers cross-examined government crypto tracing expert FBI Special Agent Joseph DeCapua, who said he had not been told to analyze Lin’s transactions.
DeCapua had previously testified to detail the alleged flow of crypto from hacks and into Tornado Cash. Storm’s lawyer Patton said the defence expected him to connect Lin’s flows to the protocol, but “apparently he hasn’t.”
Prosecutors reportedly said they’d call in IRS analyst Stephan George, another crypto tracing expert, to show Lin’s funds touched Tornado Cash.
Crypto sleuths cast doubt on Lin’s testimony
It’s not known what research Storm’s defence team conducted, but blockchain researchers recently claimed on social media that onchain transactions tied to Lin’s scammers show the funds never touched Tornado Cash.
Related: What you need to know about Roman Storm’s Tornado Cash trial
MetaMask security researcher Taylor Monahan posted on X on Friday that Lin’s scammers did not use Tornado Cash, and detailed how she traced Lin’s funds.
Monahan said the scammers swapped Lin’s Bitcoin for Ether (ETH) and the transaction was bundled onchain with others that Payback, the crypto tracing firm Lin hired, mistakenly noted as originating from the scammer.
Blockchain analyst ZachXBT also agreed with Monahan’s conclusion and criticized Payback’s analysis.
“[I don’t know] how you mess up the tracing that bad as a firm to where you couldn’t properly follow instant exchange deposits 1 hop from a theft address and then follow subsequent txns down the wrong path to Tornado [Cash], ZachXBT wrote.
Magazine: Tornado Cash 2.0 — The race to build safe and legal coin mixers
