Roman Storm won’t see the inside of a courtroom again until April 2027. Maybe later. A federal judge pushed the Tornado Cash developer’s retrial past the two-year mark from his conviction, leaving his motion for acquittal undecided. The court filing was reported Aug. 26.
The order came down Tuesday. US District Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted the adjournment, citing Storm’s pending motion for acquittal and a related continuance request. The retrial had been set for Oct. 26, 2026. Now: April 26, 2027. More than six months of additional limbo.
Three charges total. A Manhattan jury convicted Storm in August 2025 of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Up to five years in prison. Jurors deadlocked on the other two counts: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate US sanctions. Prosecutors wanted those re-litigated in October. They asked the court for exactly that in March 2026.
The defense wanted time. On Aug. 3, 2026, Storm’s lawyers filed for the delay, arguing they needed at least 90 days after the acquittal-motion ruling to prepare for another trial. Prosecutors opposed the adjournment, per the filing. Same tension that has defined the case from the start: the government pushing for speed, the defense insisting the acquittal question gets resolved before any retrial planning begins.
That acquittal motion is the wrinkle. Storm asked the court to acquit him on all three charges, arguing prosecutors failed to prove he intended to help criminals misuse Tornado Cash, the crypto-privacy tool he helped build. The motion reframes the conviction and the deadlocks alike as a question of intent, not mechanics. As of the adjournment order, undecided.
For developers of privacy-preserving software, the delay stretches an already long shadow. Storm’s case has become the test of how far criminal liability reaches when the code itself is neutral and misuse is driven by end users.
Storm posted on X the day the order dropped. “My acquittal motion is still sitting there, undecided,” he wrote. “I honestly don’t know when this ends.”
What nobody knows yet: when Judge Failla rules on the acquittal motion. Whether sentencing on the convicted money-transmitting count has been scheduled or is being held pending the retrial. The court hasn’t set a hearing date for the motion itself.
