Defense weighs mistrial in Roman Storm’s Tornado Cash case over disputed evidence

Roman Storm’s defense is reportedly planning to seek a mistrial after a government witness linked to a romance scam failed to establish direct ties to Tornado Cash.

According to the Inner City Press, the Tornado Cash co-founder’s lawyers raised the issue before U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla on Monday. 

The development followed testimony from government witness Hanfeng Lin, who said she lost nearly $250,000 in a crypto scam and was told that some of her stolen funds had passed through Tornado Cash.

Storm’s lawyer, David Patton, disputed the claim, stating that their research did not support any link between Lin’s funds and the mixing protocol, but added that the team would confer with Storm about the possibility of moving for a mistrial.

A mistrial occurs when a trial is rendered invalid due to procedural errors or improper presentation of evidence. If granted, the case may be dismissed or retried with a new judge and jury. 

In this case, Storm’s team is questioning whether Lin’s testimony should have been admitted, given the lack of on-chain evidence tying her transactions to the protocol.

Lin testified that she fell victim to a pig butchering scam in 2021 and later sought help from a crypto recovery service called Payback. She said Payback provided a report claiming some of her funds had been routed through Tornado Cash. 

However, the defense reportedly questioned the reliability of this report, stating that FBI agent Joseph DeCapua, who was expected to trace Lin’s transactions and link them to Tornado Cash, confirmed during cross-examination that he had not been asked to examine them.

Prosecutors, on the other hand, are reportedly planning to engage IRS analyst Stephan George to establish that Lin’s funds did in fact pass through the Tornado Cash protocol. 

“We have an expert, IRS Agent George, who will testify about the few short hops to Tornado Cash,” assistant U.S. attorney Thane Rehn was quoted as saying.

Independent blockchain researchers have also challenged Lin’s testimony. Taylor Monahan, a security researcher at MetaMask, said her analysis found no evidence that Lin’s funds were processed through Tornado Cash.

Backing her claims was self-proclaimed blockchain sleuth ZachXBT. Both have pointed out that Payback’s tracing report did not appear to align with publicly available on-chain data.

“It’s unfortunate these predatory firms come up as the first search results on Google when victims look for help,” ZachXBT said.

Storm, is facing charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions, and operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that Tornado Cash laundered over $1 billion, including funds from North Korea’s Lazarus Group, and accuses Storm of allowing illicit use of the service without controls.

Storm has pleaded not guilty. His defense maintains that Tornado Cash is a decentralized, non-custodial protocol whose smart contracts operate autonomously once deployed.

Critics of the prosecution have echoed these concerns, warning that the case could have wide-ranging implications for software development and financial privacy.