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The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has committed to contribute up to $500,000 to Tornado Cash’s co-founder, Roman Storm, to aid in his ongoing legal defense. This comes after the recent trial outcome that deemed Storm guilty of one of three accusations.
Ethereum Foundation Aids Tornado Cash’s Co-Founder
On Thursday, the Free Pertsev and Storm fundraising initiative unveiled that the Ethereum Foundation will match contributions up to $500,000 to assist the Tornado Cash co-founder’s legal defense in light of this week’s judgment.
In a post on X, the fundraising group explained that they “will require these funds and more to continue the battle for Roman at the trial court and during appeal. The result of these proceedings will establish significant precedent for developers around the globe.”
As stated by Bitcoinist, the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) penalized Tornado Cash in August 2022 for failing to implement adequate measures to hinder malicious actors from laundering assets via the protocol, including $455 million linked to the North Korea-associated hacking group, Lazarus Group.
Storm was arrested and charged following the Tornado Cash sanctions, facing accusations of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate sanctions, and conspiracy to operate an unauthorized money-transmitting service.
On August 6, the result of the long-anticipated trial, which began on July 14 after being postponed twice, was declared. Notably, the jury could not reach a unanimous conclusion regarding two of the three charges: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions.
Nevertheless, the jury found the Tornado Cash co-founder guilty of the remaining count: conspiracy to operate an unauthorized money transmitting business, which could result in a 5-year sentence for the crypto mixer’s co-founder.
After the ruling, he commented to journalist Elenor Terret that the outcome was “a significant victory. The ‘1960’ charge is nonsensical and we’re going to contest it thoroughly. You know how President Trump said ‘fight, fight, fight’? We’ll do just that.”
As the Free Pertsev and Storm team elaborated, “Roman faces up to 5 years of imprisonment if he does not succeed in the appeal, and potentially decades if the government opts to retry Counts 1 & 3.”
What Lies Ahead For Storm’s Defense?
Unchained host and journalist Laura Shin conducted an interview with former prosecutor Sam Enzer to discuss the mixed ruling and what’s next for the Tornado Cash co-founder. Enzer highlighted that before proceeding to appeal, “Roman can request a new trial or a judgment of a quibble.” Following that, “there will be a briefing on that. The court, Judge Failla will decide.”
As the former prosecutors pointed out, if the Judge determines that the conviction was correct regarding the conspiracy to operate an unauthorized money transmitting business count, they could advance to sentencing. Furthermore, the government could retry Storm on the two counts where the jury was deadlocked.
Thus, retrials are a possibility, or the judge might conclude that the conviction was improper and could state that on the counts where the jury was indecisive, those should have been dismissed.
Enzer asserted that if either of these “extreme” results occurs, the case could progress to appeal after navigating through the district court, adding that “who appeals will hinge on the result. If the government is dissatisfied with the outcome, they’ll be the ones appealing. If Roman is dissatisfied, he’ll appeal.”
Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $3,953 on the one-week chart. Source: ETHUSDT on TradingView
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