Jurors will now decide the fate of Roman Storm, co-founder of cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash, after prosecutors and the defense delivered closing arguments on Wednesday.
The closing arguments phase of a trial is when both sides summarize a case before a judge or jury, making their cases and trying one last time to persuade before the fact-finder goes off to deliberate.
Storm is standing trial in the Southern District of New York in a case that could set a precedent for how much responsibility developers have for decentralized software that is used illegally.
US prosecutors allege that Storm conspired to launder money, violated US sanctions and operated an unlicensed money-transmitting business. If convicted, Storm could face up to 40 years in prison.
The judge has issued final instructions to the jury, which is now set to begin deliberations.
Prosecution claims Roman Storm is a conspirator
Ben Gianforti, an assistant US attorney experienced in crypto crimes, argued that Storm was a conspirator guilty of “hiding dirty money,” running “an illegal transmitting business” and violating sanctions against North Korea and the Lazarus Group.
In his closing argument, Gianforti claimed that Tornado Cash was used after major security breaches, such as the KuCoin hack and the Ronin hack, saying that the mixer platform transferred $350 million from a sanctioned Lazarus wallet after sanctions were announced.
“This is a simple story,” Gianforti said, according to Inner City Press. “Tornado Cash was a fancy online money launderer. The business was privacy for criminals. I urge you to use your common sense. Roman Storm is guilty. Thank you.”
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Defense claims Storm never intended to help criminals
David Patton, an attorney on Storm’s defense team, made the argument that Tornado Cash is like many other technology products, in that criminals, as well as regular citizens, find them useful.
Intent was a key focus of Patton’s argument, where he said that it “is not enough to know that criminals use the product. You have to intentionally help criminals. Roman’s intent was entirely the opposite. From the US closing you’d think knowledge is all that’s needed.”
Patton argued that Storm didn’t want hackers using Tornado Cash and that they didn’t celebrate when they learned about North Koreans hackers’ use of it. “This is not a civil negligence case,” Patton said. “There has to be willful intent, for good reasons.”
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