DOJ Seeks Roman Storm Retrial After Hung Jury

Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash co-founder whose August conviction left two charges unresolved, is heading back to federal court. Manhattan US Attorney Jay Clayton filed a letter Monday asking Judge Katherine Polk Failla to schedule a retrial for October — a move that has reignited a fierce debate about developer liability, crypto privacy, and whether the DOJ even knows what it wants from digital asset enforcement.

What Charges Does Roman Storm Face at Retrial?

The retrial targets two counts where the first jury couldn't reach agreement: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions. The jury that sat through the first trial returned a conviction on one count — operating an unlicensed money transmitting business — but deadlocked on the two remaining charges, giving prosecutors the opening to try again.

Clayton's letter asked the court to set a start date of October 5 to 12, with a three-week trial window. Prosecutors said they could go as early as spring — somewhere between March and May — but Storm's defense team said they weren't available until late 2026, which is how October became the target.

A jury already couldn't agree this was criminal. But the SDNY prosecutors want to keep trying with the hope of getting a different answer.

Storm's Acquittal Bid Complicates the Timeline

There's a procedural wrinkle prosecutors can't ignore. Storm asked Judge Polk Failla in October to acquit him outright on the money transmitting conviction, arguing the government failed to prove he intended to help bad actors exploit Tornado Cash. That motion isn't scheduled for argument until early April, meaning Storm's lawyers told prosecutors that setting any new trial date was premature. Clayton's letter acknowledged the dispute but pushed the scheduling request anyway.

Storm posted about the retrial on X, calling it a case about "writing open-source code" for "a protocol I don't control" and "transactions I never touched." He noted the two deadlocked counts — the ones the government is now chasing — carry a combined maximum of 40 years in federal prison.

Is the DOJ Contradicting Its Own Crypto Policy?

This is the part that stings. US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memo last April stating the Justice Department "is not a digital assets regulator" and would "no longer pursue litigation or enforcement actions that have the effect of superimposing regulatory frameworks on digital assets." Storm, predictably, called out the contradiction: "Same country, same DOJ — just filed to retry me anyway."

The DeFi Education Fund's legal director Amanda Tuminelli didn't pull punches either. She said the decision to retry Storm was "incredibly disappointing," pointing to what she described as obvious mistakes in the first trial — calling irrelevant witnesses, misunderstanding forensic blockchain evidence — and then asking, essentially, why the SDNY thinks a second attempt will land differently. She flagged what she called "multiple legal and logical fallacies" in the government's theory of third-party developer liability.

The DOJ's posture sits awkwardly alongside a report the US Treasury submitted to Congress this month, which acknowledged lawful uses of crypto mixers — including protecting privacy in everyday consumer spending. That's a narrow but notable concession, and it comes right as prosecutors are doubling down on the man who built one.

Despite failing to convince a jury the first time around, despite making obvious mistakes like calling irrelevant witnesses and not understanding the forensic analysis of their own blockchain evidence, the SDNY will retry Roman Storm.

What This Means for Crypto Developers

Call it persistence, call it institutional stubbornness — the SDNY is betting a second jury will see what the first one couldn't agree on. For anyone building privacy tools or open-source DeFi protocols, the retrial sends a clear message: the government's appetite to criminalize code hasn't cooled, whatever the deputy AG's memo says.

The outcome of Storm's acquittal motion in April could upend everything. If Judge Polk Failla grants it, the October retrial falls apart before it starts. If she denies it, Storm faces two juries' worth of scrutiny on charges that could send him away for decades.