Tornado Cash Trial Begins with Discussions Around Limine and Data Cansodians’ Motion

Only within the first 90 minutes of a day, the judge interacts with the prosecution and defense before the judge presided over the trial. The rest of the time is dedicated to the jury selection process.

The judge began the meeting by discussing the remaining three motions At the limit From the defense, the opposition to the data from the phone, including Alexey Pertsev, co-founder of the tornado, another about Brady Defence request.

Motion in Limine #1: Extracting data from Persev’s phone

Whether it was in a status meeting on Friday and a letter sent to the court over the weekend, the defense questioned the integrity of the data extracted from Alexey Pertsev, a co-founder of Tornado Cash, who was sentenced to 64 months in prison in the Netherlands for money laundering costs associated with Tornado.

It claims that certain messages in the data, especially Pertsev’s telegram messages, lack context and should therefore be acceptable.

The defense in particular quoted a message, and incorrectly deleted it to Persev: “Hey, is anyone around talking about Axie?

The news refers to the $600 million cryptocurrency utilization of online game Axie Infinity, which is laundered through tornado cash. What the court record did not initially show is that the message was forwarded from a Coindesk A reporter from the defendant Roman Storm from Pertsev.

The judge solved the issue, but noted that it was not the basis for excluding the remaining data extracted from Persev’s cell phone from the evidence in the case.

Movement in Limine #2: Defendant of Defendant Brady Require

Judge Farah also denied the defense’s recent Brady request. (This kind of request Brady v. Maryland The Supreme Court case occurred in 1963. The case was established Brady Rules, which provide for the provision of exploitative evidence to national defense so that it can be used as part of due process. )

“It is extremely unlikely to have more ideas to reveal the information,” Judge Farara said.

The defense did not postpone the judge’s decision.

Question the legality of the data provided by the custodian

The prosecution plan will serve as evidence some data provided by companies such as Apple, X and Dragonfly (the venture capital firm that invests in tornado cash).

The defense questioned the legality of data based on the recently discovered misinvolved telegram messages.

It requires representatives of these companies to testify at trial on the legality of the data.

Judge Failla denied the request, pointing out that such testimony was unnecessary.

The defense accepted the denials related to Apple and X, but delayed them in support of the request because it was related to Dragonfly, calling for questions about the relevance of the data provided and the devices that obtained the data.

The problem with the Dragonfly Telegram message

The defense claimed that telegram messages from Dragonfly employees should not hand over the company to the court, and also stated that tornado cash transaction documents could be included).

In response, the prosecution acknowledged that some of the telegram messages contained rumors, but explained that the messages also contained information about the tornado cash business transactions and therefore, they should not be excluded from evidence.

Judge Farara then listed a ruling in the United States v. El Gammal, a 2020 Second Circuit case that stipulates Facebook records are commercial records in a defense of using information as part of the evidence system.

The prosecution also cites the U.S. case with Figueroa, which began in 2023, and the court held that in some cases it was legal to recognize legal business records, claiming that the telegram messages obtained by the court were both commercial records and related to the case.

In the last statement on the matter, the defense claimed that only speculation was speculated that the equipment received the telegram message was the company-owned equipment.

Judge Failla was particularly shocked by the statement, saying the defense had no basis for this claim and that she obtained proof that the phone was actually the company’s device.

The prosecution added that the records made by the dragonfly were in response to a grand jury subpoena, suggesting that the dragonfly was unlikely to choose to deceive itself on something like this.

Jury selection

The jury selection process began at 11:15 a.m. ET and lasted for the rest of the day.

About 45 of the 90 potential jurors talked to the judge at a sidebar meeting.

The jury selection process will resume tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. ET.

If time permits, the prosecution and defense will open later tomorrow.