The DOJ Will Not Let the Hung Jury Be the Final Word
The U.S. Department of Justice is pushing to retry Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on the two most serious charges from his case: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions. As of March 10, 2026, prosecutors have proposed an early October retrial date, according to Cointelegraph.
The move comes seven months after a jury in the Southern District of New York delivered a split verdict in August 2025. Jurors convicted Storm on one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. But they deadlocked on the money laundering and sanctions charges, which together carry a potential 40-year sentence. Judge Katherine Polk Failla declared a partial mistrial on those counts.
Storm remains free on bail. His legal team filed a motion for acquittal in October 2025, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to support any of the charges. The DOJ responded in November, opposing that motion and signaling it wanted another shot at the unresolved counts.
Why This Case Matters Beyond Roman Storm
This is not just a case about one developer. It is the most consequential test of whether building open-source privacy tools can constitute a federal crime.
Tornado Cash is a non-custodial, smart-contract-based mixer on Ethereum. Users deposit ETH or ERC-20 tokens, and the protocol severs the on-chain link between sender and receiver. Storm and co-founder Roman Semenov built the protocol and maintained its front-end interface. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, alleging it facilitated over $7 billion in crypto laundering, including funds stolen by North Korea's Lazarus Group.
The legal question at the core of the case: does deploying and maintaining a self-custody smart contract make you legally responsible for how third parties use it?
Prosecutors argued that Storm exercised "direct and intentional control" over the mixer, pointing to roughly 250 modifications to the protocol's interface between February 2020 and August 2022. They said 96% of users accessed Tornado Cash through that interface, making Storm more than a passive code author.
The defense countered that Tornado Cash's smart contracts are immutable and decentralized. Storm could modify the front end, but not the underlying protocol logic. Writing open-source code, they argued, should not be treated the same as operating a custodial financial intermediary.
The Political Crosscurrents Pulling This Case Apart
What makes this retrial proposal unusual is the political environment surrounding it.
In April 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memorandum ending what the DOJ called "regulation by prosecution" of the crypto industry. The so-called Blanche Memorandum stated explicitly that the DOJ is not a digital assets regulator and instructed prosecutors to stop using broad legal theories to target crypto developers.
Then in August 2025, Matthew Galeotti, acting assistant attorney general for the DOJ's criminal division, stated publicly that "merely writing code, without ill intent, is not a crime." He signaled the department opposed retrials in cases like Storm's and would not prosecute similar ones.
Yet the Southern District of New York prosecutors are filing for exactly that. The disconnect between DOJ leadership rhetoric and the actions of line prosecutors in SDNY is glaring. More than 65 crypto advocacy organizations have called on President Trump to intervene, and Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin wrote a public letter in January 2026 defending Storm as "a principled developer focused on quality and long-term usability rather than profit."
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals also delivered a significant ruling in November 2024, finding that OFAC overstepped its authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash's smart contracts. That decision weakened the legal foundation for the sanctions charge, though it does not directly bind the SDNY court.
What an October Retrial Would Mean for DeFi Developers
If the DOJ gets its October date, the retrial will unfold during a period of intense regulatory flux for crypto in the United States.
The money laundering charge rests on the theory that providing infrastructure that third parties use for illegal purposes makes the infrastructure provider a co-conspirator. If a second jury convicts Storm on this count, the precedent would extend far beyond mixers. Any DeFi protocol, bridge, or decentralized exchange that processes transactions without KYC could face similar exposure. Developers who maintain front ends, update UIs, or promote protocol features would be the first targets.
The sanctions charge is narrower but potentially more damaging. If writing code that interacts with sanctioned entities, even unknowingly, becomes criminal, the chilling effect on open-source development would be severe. Developers would need to screen every user of every protocol they build, which is impossible for permissionless systems by design.
The crypto industry is watching this case as a proxy for a larger question: can code be speech, or is it a regulated financial service?
What Happens Next
The acquittal motion filed by Storm's defense remains pending. Judge Failla has not yet ruled on it. If she grants the motion, the retrial becomes moot. If she denies it, the October date would move forward.
Sentencing on the single conviction (unlicensed money transmission) has not been scheduled either. Storm faces up to five years on that count alone.
The case also has implications for Roman Semenov, Tornado Cash's other co-founder, who was indicted on the same charges but remains outside U.S. jurisdiction. If Storm is convicted on the remaining counts, Semenov faces even greater pressure to avoid extradition.
For users of privacy-focused crypto tools, the practical impact is already being felt. Several mixer protocols have restricted U.S. access, and developers of new privacy tools have relocated outside American jurisdiction. The Trump administration's national cyber strategy pledged to protect blockchain innovation, but this retrial suggests the promise has limits when national security concerns are on the table.
Overview
The DOJ has filed to retry Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm on money laundering and sanctions charges, proposing an early October 2026 date. This comes after a hung jury in August 2025 deadlocked on these counts while convicting Storm of operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. The case sits at the intersection of open-source development rights, financial crime enforcement, and the political promises of the current administration. With 65+ crypto organizations opposing the retrial, Vitalik Buterin publicly defending Storm, and DOJ leadership having signaled opposition to such prosecutions, the SDNY filing represents a direct test of whether Washington's pro-crypto rhetoric translates into courtroom reality.
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