Twister Money developer Roman Storm’s trial adopted the legislation and the choose overseeing his case shouldn’t contemplate acquitting him of all costs, federal prosecutors mentioned.
In a post-trial submitting dated final Wednesday, attorneys with the Division of Justice’s Southern District of New York workplace pushed again in opposition to Storm’s movement for acquittal, saying they’d proved with enough proof that he had constructed and managed Twister Money, the crypto mixing service that was as soon as sanctioned by the U.S. because of its use by North Korean and different actors.
On the finish of September, Storm’s attorneys filed a post-trial movement arguing that District Choose Katherine Polk Failla ought to acquit him of all costs — not simply the conspiracy to function an unlicensed cash transmitter cost he was convicted on, but additionally the 2 deadlocked costs, conspiring to commit cash laundering and conspiring to violate sanctions legislation. In that procedural submitting, the protection argued that the prosecutors didn’t have enough proof to really assist a conviction on any cost.
In Wednesday’s submitting, prosecutors said that their proof was certainly enough to reveal that Storm was a co-founder of Twister Money and had constructed options he knew would help cybercriminals.
“The defendant’s management was neither passive nor incidental: he and his co-conspirators modified the UI roughly 250 instances between February 26, 2020 and August 8, 2022, (Tr. 1063-64, 1078-79), controlling the means by which the overwhelming majority of customers accessed the Twister Money Service, (Tr. 1049, 1182). Throughout the charged time interval, at the very least 96 % of Twister Money customers accessed the Twister Money service by way of the UI. (Tr. 1049, 1182),” the submitting mentioned, referencing parts of the transcript from the 4-week trial.
The submitting additionally argued that prosecutors had sufficient proof to assist their conspiracy to commit cash laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions costs, and the choose shouldn’t acquit on both of these.
Storm’s attorneys have till this upcoming Wednesday to file a response.