Roman Storm, one of the co-founders and developers behind the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixture, appeared in a video interview because his American criminal trial should start in less than two weeks.
In an interview published Wednesday by Crypto in America on Wednesday, Storm said that his legal team intended to deal with allegations that he had personally benefited from illicit funds thanks to his role at Tornado Cash.
However, he refused to say if he would testify for his own defense for accusations of money laundering, conspiracy in sight to exploit a silver issuer without license and a plot to violate American sanctions.
“This is the decision we will make,” said Storm, taking a stand in court. “I have no 100% response at the moment. I can or not. “
The American authorities charged the storm in 2023, approximately a year after the office of control of foreign assets of the treasury of sanctioned addresses linked to the Tornado Cash. The government agency said that the mixing service had facilitated money laundering with cryptography stolen by pirates from North Korea, the Lazare group.
Roman Semenov, one of the other tornado cash developers named in the same indictment as Storm, was still at the time of publication. However, Alexey Pertsev, another co-founder and promoter, was found guilty of money laundering in the Netherlands and sentenced to more than five years in prison.
In relation: The Ethereum Foundation promises $ 500,000 to the defense of Roman Storm
Life while waiting for a storm trial
Since his arrest, Storm has received a wave of support from many people in the cryptography industry, describing his accusation act as an attack against developers and private life.
The co-founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Paradigm Matt Huang, and the Ethereum Foundation all contributed thousands of dollars to the Storm Legal Fund, which would have more than $ 750,000 in June 26.
“I have a lot of mental damage of this case, of course,” said Storm. “It’s so damaging […] You believed in one thing, you thought there was a [sic] common sense, there is a misunderstanding, and you get this [sic] Hard things happen in your life. I would certainly need to recover for a while to come back in what I like. »»
The Storm trial is expected to start with the American district court in the South District in New York on July 14.
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