In a recent development in the Tornado Cash Co-founder Roman Storm’s trial, the U.S. prosecutors allowed testimony from Stephan George, an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent.
Stephan testified that he had reviewed transaction records connected to crypto exchanges like Binance and Crypto.com. He said that Roman had control over funds after an account connected to Binance sent crypto to Tornado Cash smart contract addresses, based on communications between the Co-founders Storm, Alexey Pertsev, and Roman Semenov.
The testimony faced a challenge from Roman’s legal team, which requested its exclusion based on Hanfeng Lin’s, a victim of a crypto scam, testimony.
The defense said, “In fact, the tracing of Ms. Lin’s funds to Tornado Cash involved far more than a few short hops. The BlockTrace report underlying Agent George’s tracing opinion actually involved many different addresses over an approximately one-month period and involved the commingling with other victims’ funds over multiple hops.”
The defense challenged a key piece of testimony from Hanfeng Lin, who had said that the stolen crypto was sent through Tornado Storm. After thoroughly reviewing Lin’s case, Roman’s attorneys argued that the crypto mixing service did not actually send any of the stolen assets. They also mentioned that they might seek a mistrial due to the misleading evidence.
On July 22, the judge also granted permission for testimony regarding potential modifications to Tornado Cash code.
Also Read: FTX to Begin Next Creditor Payouts in September After $1.9B Cut
