Federal prosecutors have told Judge Katherine Polk Failla that an appeals court ruling upholding Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov’s conviction supports their position that Roman Storm was properly tried in New York.

In a letter filed Monday in the Southern District of New York, prosecutors argued that a Tornado Cash user’s transactions from his Manhattan apartment were sufficient to establish venue for two counts against Storm. The filing cites the D.C. Circuit’s September 25 ruling, which affirmed Sterlingov’s conviction and 150-month sentence (opinion).

Tornado Cash and Bitcoin Fog are coin mixers, software that pools users’ cryptocurrency to break the on-chain link between where funds originate and where they are sent.

Storm’s motion for acquittal, a request that the judge enter judgment in his favor, challenges venue among other grounds and was argued in April; it remains undecided. A Manhattan jury convicted him in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, but deadlocked on money laundering and sanctions charges. The prosecutors’ letter addresses the money laundering conspiracy and money transmitting counts.

The Constitution requires that a crime be tried in a location where at least part of it took place. That requirement gives venue objections real force: a conviction obtained in the wrong district can be vacated on that ground alone, regardless of the evidence of underlying conduct. In Sterlingov’s case, the D.C. Circuit found venue proper in Washington based largely on a sting operation. According to the opinion, a special agent deposited about $250 worth of Bitcoin into Bitcoin Fog from the District of Columbia and withdrew almost all of it the following day.

Prosecutors point to Tornado Cash use in Manhattan

Prosecutors said the same reasoning applies to Shakeeb Ahmed, a Tornado Cash user who testified that he accessed the service “in [his] apartment in Manhattan.”

Storm’s lawyers had argued that Ahmed’s funds remained in Tornado Cash pools for too short a period to further a conspiracy. The government’s letter counters that the deposit stayed in the pools for “a couple days,” making it comparable to the Bitcoin Fog agent’s transaction.

At the April hearing, Storm’s lawyer Brian Klein argued that Ahmed used Tornado Cash before committing his crime and “didn’t actually use Tornado Cash for his hack.”

On the money transmitting count, prosecutors said the appeals court found venue proper solely because Bitcoin Fog had “served customers in the District.” They argued that Ahmed’s testimony similarly shows Tornado Cash served a customer in Manhattan.

Storm posted the filing on X on Tuesday and wrote, “The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has. They really want to see me convicted.” His post included a link to the filing:

October 5, 2026 A new letter was filed today by SDNY: The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has. They really want to see me convicted. It has been 1,139 days since my nightmare began. They arrested me when my daughter was just 3 years old,… — Roman Storm 🇺🇸 🌪️ (@rstormsf) October 6, 2026

Storm also pointed to a Treasury notice filed Monday, the same day as the prosecutors’ letter, in which the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network withdrew a 2023 proposal that would have required financial institutions to report transactions involving international cryptocurrency mixing (notice).

FinCEN said the decision was informed by commenters’ concerns that its broad definition of mixing “could have a chilling effect on legitimate activity.” The notice also states that illicit actors continue to use mixers and FinCEN will continue monitoring them.

The same-day filings put two directions of U.S. mixer policy on display: regulators pulling back from a proposed reporting mandate even as prosecutors press mixer-related charges in criminal court.

Storm contrasted the notice with an argument made by prosecutor Ben Arad during the April hearing: Once Tornado Cash was largely serving criminals, “even the legitimate transactions that went through Tornado Cash became illegitimate.” Failla pressed Arad on the point, saying, “I’m concerned if that’s your theory.”

Storm’s retrial on the two deadlocked counts is scheduled for April 26, 2027, after prosecutors had sought to begin it this month. Failla’s ruling on the acquittal motion, which includes the venue challenge, remains pending ahead of that date. Alexey Pertsev, who worked on Tornado Cash alongside Storm, was convicted of money laundering in the Netherlands in 2024 and released to electronic monitoring pending appeal.