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DOJ invokes Bitcoin Fog ruling in potential blow to Roman Storm acquittal bid
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- DeepHorus
The U.S. Department of Justice has invoked a recent appeals court ruling involving cryptocurrency mixer Bitcoin Fog as supplemental authority in its effort to defeat Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm's bid for acquittal, potentially undermining his challenge to venue in New York. In a filing submitted Monday, federal prosecutors argued that the Bitcoin Fog decision "directly supports" their position that activity connected to Tornado Cash in Manhattan was sufficient to establish venue in the Southern District of New York for Storm's money-laundering and unlicensed money-transmission conspiracy charges.
Storm, a developer of the privacy-focused crypto mixer Tornado Cash, was convicted by a jury in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, while jurors deadlocked on the money-laundering and sanctions-conspiracy counts. He filed his post-trial motion for acquittal in September 2025, contending that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help criminals misuse the platform.
Central to the venue dispute is testimony from Shakeeb Ahmed, who told the court he used Tornado Cash from his Manhattan apartment. Storm has argued that Ahmed's transactions were not enough to establish venue in New York because they did not further the alleged conspiracy. Prosecutors countered that even short-lived deposits help a mixer by enlarging the pool of transactions used to obscure the movement of funds, reasoning that Ahmed's activity therefore supported the conspiracy.
The authorities they cite come from a September 25 appeals court ruling that affirmed the convictions and 12.5-year sentence of Bitcoin Fog operator Roman Sterlingov. The D.C. Circuit held that venue in Washington, D.C., was proper on all four counts, relying on evidence that an undercover agent conducted Bitcoin Fog transactions from his D.C. office and that the service had served customers in the district.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla, who heard arguments on Storm's acquittal motion in April 2026, has not yet issued a ruling. A retrial on the deadlocked money-laundering and sanctions-conspiracy counts is scheduled for April 26, 2027, should those charges remain pending.
Storm criticized the filing in a post on X on Monday, writing, "The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has." He also pointed to the Treasury Department's Monday announcement that it would withdraw its proposed crypto-mixer rule, arguing the government is taking conflicting approaches to crypto privacy tools.
If Judge Failla accepts the prosecutors' venue argument, Storm's acquittal bid would face a significant setback, potentially reshaping where crypto-mixer cases can be prosecuted across the United States.
