US Southern District of New York (SDNY) prosecutors have pushed again on the Twister Money co-founder’s protection, claiming that his arguments for dismissal lack applicability forward of a vital listening to later this week.
DOJ Says Twister Money Founder’s Protection Is ‘Not Relevant’
On Tuesday, US Lawyer for the Southern District of New York Jay Clayton despatched a letter to Decide Katherine Failla rejecting Twister Money co-founder Roman Storm’s current letter in help of his movement for a judgment of acquittal.
Clayton’s response addressed an April 2 movement filed by Storm’s protection, which claimed {that a} 2026 Supreme Court docket case, Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Leisure, supported his pending Rule 29 movement.
The Cox case concerned a civil legal responsibility of an web service supplier for its subscribers participating in copyright infringement. The Supreme Court docket discovered that Cox was not contributorily accountable for copyright infringement on its customers’ accounts, because it didn’t induce its customers’ infringement nor present a service tailor-made to infringement.
Within the Tuesday submitting, the US legal professional argued that “The defendant and the Twister Money service are a far cry from Cox,” affirming that “Even when Cox had some applicability right here, its reasoning gives no assist to the defendant given the strikingly completely different information at concern.”
Prosecutors file letter pushing again on Storm's protection. Supply: Interior Metropolis Press on X
“As set forth intimately within the Authorities’s response to the defendant’s Rule 29 movement— and in distinction to Cox’s strong system for responding to infringement—the defendant deliberately carried out mere half-measures that he mentioned have been ‘simple to bypass’ to counter felony use of the Twister Money service, and his objective in doing so was to distract legislation enforcement,” the doc learn.
Clayton added that Storm’s use of the crypto mixer “was window dressing at finest and outright misdirection at worst,” as there was no proof that the Twister Money founders put in place efficient anti-money-laundering (AML) measures.
It’s price noting that the US Division of the Treasury’s Workplace of Overseas Property Management (OFAC) sanctioned Twister Money in August 2022 for failing to impose efficient controls to forestall malicious actors from laundering funds by the protocol, together with $455 million by the North Korea-linked hacking group, Lazarus Group.
Nevertheless, the sanctions have been overturned in March 2025 after the Court docket of Appeals dominated in November 2024 that OFAC had overstepped its authority by sanctioning immutable, decentralized good contracts reasonably than a authorized entity.
US Prosecutors Search Roman Storm Retrial
The prosecutors’ newest transfer follows his March letter looking for a retrial of the Twister Money co-founder on the 2 counts the place jurors have been deadlocked final August. Within the letter, Clayton requested Decide Failla to schedule a retrial for Roman Storm, pushing for trial dates between October 5 and 12, 2026.
For context, Storm was detained and indicted following the Twister Money sanctions and charged with conspiracy to commit cash laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and conspiracy to function an unlicensed money-transmitting enterprise.
The jury discovered Storm responsible of 1 depend of conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitting enterprise, however was unable to return to a unanimous choice concerning the 2 different expenses. Nonetheless, a hung jury doesn’t represent an acquittal, which opened the door to a possible retrial on these expenses.
In September, Storm filed a movement for acquittal, which asks the trial choose to throw out expenses or a verdict as a result of the prosecution’s proof is legally inadequate. The Twister Money founder’s legal professionals argued that the federal government by no means proved he meant to assist unhealthy actors launder cash by the platform, which might invalidate the grounds for his conviction primarily based on negligent inaction.
Now, prosecutors and Storm’s protection attorneys are scheduled to fulfill on April 9 for an oral argument on the pending Rule 29 movement, which might form the course of this key authorized battle.
The entire crypto market capitalization sits at $2.32 trillion on the one-week chart. Supply: TOTAL on TradingView
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