Tornado Cash Developer Roman Storm's Retrial Delayed to April 2027
Key Takeaways
- •The retrial date for Roman Storm has been rescheduled from Oct. 26, 2026, to April 26, 2027.
- •Judge Katherine Polk Failla said the delay is tied to Storm’s pending acquittal motion and request for a continuance.
- •A Manhattan jury convicted Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to run an unlicensed money-transmitting business but did not reach verdicts on two other counts.
- •US prosecutors want to retry Storm on conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions, charges that each carry a maximum 20-year sentence.
- •The case is being closely watched as a test of whether software developers can be held criminally liable for code that others misuse.
The retrial of Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm has been postponed from Oct. 26, 2026, to April 26, 2027, as a federal judge weighs his pending motion for acquittal.
US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla said in a Tuesday court order that the retrial would be adjourned “in light of” Storm’s pending motion and his related request for a continuance.
Storm’s lawyers requested the delay on Aug. 3, telling the court they needed at least 90 days after the judge rules on the acquittal motion to prepare for another trial. Prosecutors opposed an adjournment, according to the filing.
A Manhattan jury convicted Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business, an offense carrying up to five years in prison, but the jurors failed to reach unanimous verdicts on the two remaining counts. In March, US prosecutors asked the court to schedule an October retrial on those charges: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate US sanctions, counts that each carry maximum sentences of 20 years.
Storm subsequently asked the court to acquit him on all three charges, arguing that prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help criminals misuse Tornado Cash, a crypto-mixing service designed to obscure transaction trails on public blockchains.
The case has become a closely watched test of whether software developers can be held criminally liable for publishing code that others misuse. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022, alleging the service had been used to launder billions of dollars for cybercriminals, including North Korea’s Lazarus Group, but delisted it in March 2025 after a federal appeals court ruled that immutable smart contracts were not “property” subject to sanctions. Storm’s fellow Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands in 2024, while a third developer, Roman Semenov, was sanctioned and charged alongside Storm and remains at large.
“My acquittal motion is still sitting there, undecided,” Storm said Tuesday on X. “I honestly don’t know when this ends.”
