According to Golden Finance, defense lawyers are considering applying for a retrial in the money laundering criminal case of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm, as the testimony of the "victim" may mislead the jury.
A fraud victim, Hanfeng Ling, claimed that $250000 of the defrauded funds flowed through Tornado Cash, but multiple on chain analysts, including MyCrypto founder Taylor Monahan and investigator ZachXBT, pointed out that Ling's funds did not enter the privacy agreement but were mistakenly traced.
The defense pointed out that the US government failed to verify the flow of funds before the trial, and FBI witnesses also admitted that they were not asked to investigate the relevant transaction pathways. Although the prosecution claimed that there were IRS witnesses who could testify that the funds did indeed flow to Tornado Cash "within a few jumps," Judge Failed stated that she could not independently determine whether the transaction tracking was true.
This case reflects that technical errors and misleading testimony in on chain evidence collection may have a significant impact on the trial outcome.
