# Roman Storm **Roman Storm** is the co-author of [[Tornado Cash]], the Ethereum privacy tool, and the defendant in *United States v. Storm* (S.D.N.Y., No. 1:23-cr-00430). It is the case that will decide, in practice, whether publishing non-custodial financial software is a federal crime. It is also a test of how far the Trump Justice Department's crypto retreat extends to someone already charged. ## The case | Date | Event | |---|---| | Aug 23, 2023 | Indicted with [[Roman Semenov]]: conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate IEEPA (sanctions), and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Arrested in Washington State; freed on $2M bond | | July 14, 2025 | Trial opens before Judge Katherine Polk Failla | | **Aug 6, 2025** | Partial verdict after four days and an Allen charge: **guilty** on the money-transmitting conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 1960, five-year maximum); jury **hung** on laundering and sanctions (40 years combined) | | Mar 9, 2026 | Prosecutors ask to retry the hung counts in October 2026 | | Apr 9, 2026 | Argument on his Rule 29 motion for acquittal | | **Aug 26, 2026** | Failla moves the retrial to **April 26, 2027**. The Rule 29 motion is still undecided | He has not been sentenced. The October 2026 retrial date that circulated earlier is superseded. ## The policy shift around him - **The Blanche memo.** Deputy AG [[Todd Blanche]]'s April 7, 2025 memo, "Ending Regulation by Prosecution," told prosecutors to stop using licensing violations as a crypto enforcement tool. It left § 1960 cases involving criminal proceeds, the theory used against Storm. - **Jackson Hole.** On August 21, 2025, two weeks after the verdict, acting Criminal Division chief Matthew Galeotti said that where software "is truly decentralized and solely automates peer-to-peer transactions," new § 1960 charges "will not be approved." The policy applies only to new cases. Storm's case continued. - **Pardons.** On November 21, 2025 more than 65 crypto groups asked Trump to drop the remaining charges. Trump had pardoned Binance founder [[Changpeng Zhao]] on October 23, 2025, and said in December he would "look at" a pardon for a Samourai Wallet developer. No pardon or charge dismissal for Storm has been reported. The contrast is the point. An exchange founder who pleaded guilty to anti-money-laundering failures got a pardon. The developer of a tool the Treasury itself has since delisted is still facing a retrial. ## See Also - [[Tornado Cash]] · [[Roman Semenov]] · [[Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury]] · [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] - [[Changpeng Zhao]] · [[Todd Blanche]] · [[Crypto-Political Machine]] · [[CLARITY Act]]