Roman Storm's defense alleges prosecutorial overreach in Tornado Cash developer's final pretrial motions

Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm's defense team has filed a new series of documents in an attempt to throw out the developer's trial before it begins. 

Following the government's response to Storm's motion to dismiss the trial, Storm's defense team filed replies on Friday again arguing that the case against him should be dismissed on the grounds that the government didn't do enough to prove his active involvement in the crimes alleged in the indictment. 

"In fact, by the time criminals allegedly began misusing it, the Tornado Cash protocol was, as the government concedes, immutable and available to anyone with an Internet connection," the motion states. 

Much of the filing contests the government's characterization of Tornado Cash as a "money transmitting business," an assertion that even caught the attention of Senators Ron Wyden and Cynthia Lummis, whose letter arguing against the government's interpretation of the term was included in Storm's motion. To characterize Tornado as a money transmitter "...runs afoul of due process, the rule of lenity and the rule against novel constructions," Storm's lawyers argue. 

In other motions, Storm's lawyers argue that government prosecutors should be compelled to produce certain correspondence with authorities in the Netherlands and that the seizure of his cryptocurrency hard wallets constituted a "wholesale assault on the Fourth Amendment." 

"The government should not be permitted to use Mr. Storm’s private keys to rifle around the blockchain to seize 'any and all' of what it believes is Mr. Storm’s cryptocurrency and transfer that cryptocurrency to its own wallets," Storm's lawyers argue, noting that the government itself admitted that it wasn't sure how to link any recovered cryptocurrency with any alleged illegal behavior. "Instead, the government is simply on a fishing expedition to see if it can find evidence of a crime," the filing states. 

Storm's initial motion to dismiss found support in the form of amicus briefs from three crypto advocacy groups while his general cause has become championed among many crypto investors, who have collectively raised millions for Storm's defense.

However, the government's filing opposing Storm's motion to dismiss notes how rare a pretrial dismissal is in cases like these. "Indeed, the vast majority of the defendants’ arguments in favor of dismissal of the Indictment consist of factual assertions that are more appropriate for a jury address than a motion claiming that the Indictment is on its face legally insufficient," government prosecutors argued. 

Roman Storm's motion hearing is set to proceed on July 12 at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in New York City.