The legal team representing Roman Storm, the developer of Tornado Cash, is inquiring about the possibility that the US Department of Justice may be holding back information that could be beneficial to Storm's case. In a letter submitted on Friday, the defense attorneys expressed concerns that prosecutors may have either misled the presiding judge or acted with a lack of transparency, citing recent disclosures in a similar case. The filing stated that the government had been in possession of exculpatory evidence since August 2023, which pertains to the central issue of whether a non-custodial cryptocurrency mixer constitutes a 'money transmitting business' under 18 U.S.C. § 1960.
The defense argued that the government's failure to produce this evidence when Storm was indicted and first appeared in court constitutes a Brady violation, resulting in significant prejudice to his defense. This development comes after the DOJ announced it would be dropping a portion of its case against Storm. The defense team is drawing parallels with the DOJ's case against two developers of the Samourai Wallet, another crypto mixer, where prosecutors allegedly delayed sharing information from two Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) officials who stated that the mixer did not appear to be a money transmitter. The prosecutors denied these allegations, claiming their disclosures were timely and that the FinCEN officials' views were not formal guidance.
The DOJ characterized the two cases as only 'superficially similar,' but the defense countered that the core feature of both cases lies in the non-custodial nature of the protocols, which is central to the conflicting interpretations of FinCEN guidance and the scope of Section 1960. The defense is requesting that Judge Katherine Polk Failla order the DOJ to review any potentially relevant materials and share the documents referenced in the Samourai case, as well as disclose when Storm's prosecutors became aware of these materials.