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Today, the Southern New York Region (SDNY) presided over a hearing on the final status conference of the tornado cash case, which began this Monday and the trial was July 14.
The hearing was actually held, with attendees including Judge Katherine Polk Failla (the judge who presided over the trial), Tornado Cash co-founder Rome Storm, and defense and prosecutors.
Storm faces three charges: conspiracy to engage in money laundering, conspiracy to operate unlicensed currency transfer services and conspiracy to violate sanctions.
The main topics discussed at the hearing include:
- New York court reasons become a place of trial
- Storm pair Bloomberg Reporter in the tornado cash report in March 2020
- Tornado Cash Co-founder and developer Whether all actions to keep Tornado Cash have enabled conspiracy to promote storm indictment
- Adoptionality of data extracted from phone call by Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev
- How Judge Ferrari plans to focus more on how Storm runs a for-profit business than the details of Tornado’s crypto-mixed software itself
Prior to participating in these topics, the judges shared some key details about the trial process.
Details about the trial
The trial will begin at 9:30 a.m. Monday, with one of the first items in the case file being jury selection.
Judge Farah noted that the trial would not be recorded, broadcast or replayed. (However, I’ll cover most (if not all) there!)
She also said she wanted to see the trial end within three weeks, although she added that she didn’t think it would, and that she might need to take some time out of the trial in early August to celebrate her sick mother’s birthday.
More importantly, the judge said that it would not be released until Tuesday July 15.
Why Tornado Cash Trials held in SDNY
According to the prosecution, the trial is underway in SDNY because Storm opened a website that facilitated a period of time in the New York City tornado cash transactions.
Prosecutors argued that the storm also regularly communicated with one of the principals of venture capital (VC) who funded tornado cash and was also funded in New York City at the time.
The prosecutor added that the storm often made demands from the venture capital client, which were not only related to funds.
Storm “corrected” a Bloomberg reporter
Prosecutor explains how the storm contacts in March 2020 Bloomberg The reporter wrote a story about tornado cash to make the reporter change the story so that the coverage does not allow the authorities to look at the tornado cash in a negative way.
They argued that the storm was talking to journalists and that the compelling journalist changed the story “to make the story inaccurate.”
The defense direction was pushed back, saying that the storm only contacted the reporter to ensure that the story was “appropriately corrected”.
The Storm did not talk about this at the hearing.
All facilitated the alleged conspiracy?
The prosecutors have put forward the notion that all efforts Storm and its co-founders have made in running their for-profit business, which leverages tornado cash technology, which further facilitates all conspiracies to charge for the storm.
One of the efforts cited by the prosecution is that Storm and his co-founders encourage our tornado cash users to use the service, creating a larger capital pool for the funds provided by North Korean hackers through the software (making funds more easily anonymous).
The judge backed off when prosecuting the argument, asking prosecutors to clarify whether it believed that anything the Tornado Cash co-founder did to keep his business further promoted the charges against the storm.
This suspended the prosecution, and at this moment a defense attorney dismissed the indictment against the storm due to lack of venue.
The judge hurriedly denied the motion and then claimed that such a request frustrated her, causing her to “explode in the beehive.”
Graykey progress report
Throughout the hearing, Judge Failla extracted Graykey data from Alexey Pertsev’s call. (Pelsev was sentenced to five years in the Netherlands for his involvement in tornado cash.)
Later in the hearing, she asked whether the prosecution and defense had questions about Pertsev’s call and then raised questions about whether the data extracted from Pertsev’s phone could be accepted. She decided to postpone her decision until trial.
She then requested a prosecution and defense to review the data discussed and the data obtained and was ready to respond to the questions during the trial.
Focus on the front end
Judge Ferrari is clear that at least at the beginning of the trial, the focus will not be on tornado cash as a hybrid service, but on the website more front-end interfaces, a storm created to facilitate transactions through the tornado cash software.
“(We) will not consider crypto mixing,” the judge said.
However, she did say that she was waiting for a response from the defense, which involved what she wrote and filed it with a court regarding cryptocurrency mixing services.
Witnesses and Motions At the limit
In addition to the above issues, the hearing participants also discussed witnesses and supplementary motions in the case. At the limit (Those who are not disclosed before or during the trial, because they are irrelevant, biased or unacceptable).
However, prosecutors did not disclose the witness’s name at the hearing, referring to “Witness #1” that has been recently identified and they have interviewed the witness.
The judge admitted that the defense’s request excluded certain materials related to Witness 1.
Multiple motions At the limit Been discussed. In this part of the hearing, the judge informed the prosecution that witnesses should not do something, such as discussing the emotional pressure they are under through freezing the funds of the tornado.
Instead, she said she prefers witnesses, who are victims of frozen funds, whether they have reached out with the Tornado Cash team in an effort to make their funds not remittances.
No discussion
At today’s hearing, it was never mentioned that the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) removed tornado cash from its sanctions list, and no court recently pulled out of the matter. Coin Center appealed to OFAC.