Co-founder of Tornado Cash Roman Storm needs $ 1.5 million in donations to cover legal costs when his criminal trial starts his third week in New York.
Summary
- Roman Storm is looking for $ 1.5 million in extra donations to cover legal costs.
- So far, more than $ 3.2 million has been collected, with a new goals for fundraising on $ 5 million.
- Storm is confronted with accusations of money laundering, punishing offenses and exploiting a money power without a permit.
Attractive for the cryptocurrency community in a July 26 after On X, Storm said that his legal team “works around” and that the costs “stack up quickly”.
“It sounds crazy, but I need ~ $ 1.5 mm again,” Storm wrote, with reference to the pressure of the expert, continuous research and continuous court cases.
Crypto donations almost $ 4 million
The last request of Storm comes despite the fact that it has already been collected millions by earlier crowdfunding efforts.
According to his websiteMore than $ 3.2 million has contributed to the Roman Storm Legal Defense Fund, which now wants to reach a total of $ 5 million.
$ 750,000 was contributed by the Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on supporting Ethereum and related technologies, who had promised to match community donations after initially committed $ 500,000.
His fundraising campaign, coordinated via Freeromanstorm.com, would treat a growing list of costs of preparing the test, testimonies of expert witnesses and national legal work.
“We have forgotten how normal sleep feels. Every hour counts, and that also applies to the costs,” wrote Storm on X.
Before the trial started on July 14, Storm had already sought $ 500,000 in donations to tackle what he then described as a ‘critical shortage’.
His legal team expected the costs to reach up to $ 3.5 million due to the extended duration of the process and the introduction of unexpected witnesses and legal complexities. That figure has now increased to $ 5 million.
What are the charges against Roman Storm?
Storm is confronted with several criminal charges brought by the US Department of Justice, including conspiracy to carry out money laundering, conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and to transfer a company with money.
The DOJ claims that Tornado -Content Money has been washed more than $ 1 billion on Crypto assets, including funds stolen by the Lazarus Group in Noord -Korea.
Storm has not guilty. His legal team argues that Tornado-Contant money is a decentralized, non-guardianship protocol whose smart contracts, once used, work autonomously without centralized control.
Continue to continue Storm, claim, the writing of Open-Source Code effectively criminalizes and violates its first amendment rights on freedom of expression.
The defense has also cited a guidelines from 2019 of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which said that developers of anonymous software are not obliged to register as money channels.
They claim that Storm has not run or facilitate fund transfer in the way regulated companies do that.
The trial, which started on July 14 in the southern district of New York under the judge Katherine Polk Faila, is now in the third week.
Initially it was expected that it would be closed within two weeks, but the timeline has since been extended. According to an updated estimate on the Storm website, a judgment is now expected that around 11 August.
American public prosecutors try to prove that Storm consciously enabled Tornado -Contant money to be used for illegal purposes and unable to implement checks to prevent abuse.
The outcome of the case could be a precedent for the question of whether developers of decentralized protocols can be held liable for how their code is used, even without constant operational control.
