Prosecutors cite Bitcoin Fog ruling to keep Roman Storm's case in New York

Prosecutors in the case against Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm are using a new appeals court decision to answer his argument that he was tried in the wrong place. In a letter filed on Monday, October 5, with Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York, they argued that a Tornado Cash user's transactions from his Manhattan apartment were enough to establish venue on two counts, Decrypt reported. Venue is the question of where a case can be tried.

The decision they cite came on September 25, when the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the conviction and 150-month sentence of Roman Sterlingov, the operator of Bitcoin Fog. The court held that Washington, D.C., was a proper venue for all four counts. A special agent working undercover had opened a Bitcoin Fog account in the city and moved about $250 in bitcoin through the service.

Storm was convicted in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The jury deadlocked on money laundering and sanctions charges. His lawyers argue that the user prosecutors point to did not use Tornado Cash for his hack and that his funds stayed in its pools too briefly to further any conspiracy, according to Decrypt.

Storm wrote on X that "The DOJ is still coming after me with everything it has," Cointelegraph reported.

His motion for acquittal, which challenges venue among other grounds, remains undecided. A retrial on the two deadlocked counts is scheduled for April 26, 2027.

Correction, October 7, 2026: An earlier version of this brief described the undercover agent as an FBI agent. The sources cited here do not name the agent's agency, and the reference has been removed.