Prosecutors Cite Bitcoin Fog Ruling Against Roman Storm's Venue Challenge

In brief

• Federal prosecutors told Judge Katherine Polk Failla that an appeals ruling upholding Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov's conviction supports trying Storm in Manhattan.
• The letter argues a Tornado Cash user's transactions from his Manhattan apartment were enough to establish venue on two counts.
• Storm contrasted the filing with FinCEN's withdrawal of a proposed reporting rule for crypto mixing, published Tuesday.

Federal prosecutors have told the judge overseeing Roman Storm's Tornado Cash case that an appeals court's decision upholding the conviction of Bitcoin Fog founder Roman Sterlingov supports their position that Storm was properly tried in New York.

Tornado Cash and Bitcoin Fog are coin mixers, software that pools users' crypto to break the on-chain link between where funds come from and where they go.

The letter, filed Monday with Judge Katherine Polk Failla in the Southern District of New York, cites the D.C. Circuit's September 25 ruling, which affirmed Sterlingov's conviction and 150-month sentence.

Storm's motion for acquittal, which challenges venue among other grounds, was argued in April and remains undecided. A Manhattan jury convicted Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and deadlocked on money laundering and sanctions charges.