The criminal trial of the co-founder of Tornado Cash Roman Storm began in the New York Federal Court with stories that were strongly opposed.
The jury selection ended on Monday. The opening declarations followed shortly after, offering the first overview of the strategy of each party.
A woman scammed for $ 250,000
Prosecutors opened with a personal story. Deputy Prosecutor of the United States, Kevin Mosley, informed the jurors of a woman in New York who lost $ 250,000 in a cryptographic scam. The pirates cheated on it, then bleached the stolen money through tornado money.
This incident, Mosley said, was just one example of how criminals used the protocol. He gave the jury a human face to a technical crime.
Subsequently, the prosecutor intensified the issues. He said that the Storm tool helped the Lazarus group in North Korea, Launder 600 million dollars stolen in a game company hack. He argued that it violated US sanctions and national security laws.
According to the prosecutors, Storm was aware of the hack but chose to do nothing. Instead, he “continued to manage the washing machine,” said Mosley.
The accusation also told the jurors that Storm not only built the machine but deleted the diversion. He “had the keys to the laundromat,” said Mosley. The government argued that it was deliberate and profitable.
Defense: “He was a coder, not a criminal”
Storm lawyer, Keri Axel, painted a very different image. She said that Storm was a young immigrant who fell in love with the blockchain.
Born in Kazakhstan, raised in Russia, then moving to the United States, Storm was inspired by the creator of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin.
Buterin encouraged developers to build confidentiality tools. This advice sparked the creation of Tornado Cash.
Axel argued that the tornado was like any neutral tool. “It’s like a signal or a hammer,” she told the jury. Both can be used for good or bad.
She stressed that Storm had no role in the hacking of North Korea. Tornado Cash was an open source protocol. Once deployed, no one – not even the storm – could stop or control it.
The t-shirt was a meme
An element of evidence that the accusation underlined was a shirt storm brought at a technological conference. It made a joke on money laundering.
Axel said that the shirt was a poor meme with a common taste in the circles of cryptography – not proof of criminal intention. “It was a joke, not a confession,” she told the jurors.
The defense has traveled the jury through the operation of Tornado Cash. Axel explained intelligent contracts, public blockchains and the role of Ethereum nodes.
She said that Storm did not charge the costs, did not have access to user funds and could not change the system once deployed.
According to Axel, the government has misunderstood the operation of the decentralized code.
The defense highlighted Storm’s reaction after the hacking of $ 600 million. Rather than exploiting the moment, Storm sent a message to the employees saying, “We have finished.”
She said it showed her fear, not her complicity. The trial, she argued, punishes a developer for the misuse of software.
The first witness testifies to the use of Tornado Cash in a cryptographic scam
After opening declarations, the jury heard the first accusation witness – MS. Taiwan linen. She said she had lost money in a cryptographic scam and was invited to use tornado money to hide the path.
His testimony was aimed at showing how average people were affected by the use of Tornado Cash by crooks.
The trial is expected to last for several weeks. The accusation plans to present chat newspapers, financial files and witness testimonies.
The jury will be invited to decide if Storm wrote the code – or lead a criminal business.
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