Defence Signals Possible Mistrial in Tornado Cash Case Over Disputed Scam Evidence

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Lawyers for Roman Storm, a developer of the crypto privacy protocol Tornado Cash, are weighing a motion for mistrial following revelations that key evidence presented by the prosecution may be flawed. At issue is testimony from a self-described scam victim who claimed her stolen funds were laundered through Tornado Cash, a claim now strongly disputed by multiple blockchain analysts.

The case centres around Hanfeng Ling, a Georgia resident originally from Taiwan, who testified that she lost $250,000 to a so-called “pig butchering” scam, a long-term fraud tactic that builds fake relationships to extract funds. Ling told the jury that after the scam, she and her husband hired a crypto recovery firm named Payback, which claimed to have traced part of the stolen money to Tornado Cash. Her email to the service’s general address reportedly went unanswered, a detail the prosecution used to suggest Storm’s alleged indifference to scam victims.

However, blockchain experts have since cast serious doubt on those claims. Taylor Monahan, founder of MyCrypto and a well-respected analyst in the field, reviewed the chain of transactions over the weekend and found no evidence linking Ling’s funds to Tornado Cash. Monahan traced Ling’s money to a separate 2023 scam involving a fraudulent firm called NTU Capital. According to her, Payback appears to have misread the transaction trail, likely due to the use of instant token swap services, common tools that can obscure fund flow for inexperienced analysts.

Monahan posted a full transaction report and a detailed thread on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), stating bluntly that Ling’s crypto “never touched Tornado.” Her findings were quickly corroborated by other crypto researchers, including the well-known pseudonymous sleuth ZachXBT. “Unfortunately, these predatory firms come up as the first search results on Google when victims look for help,” ZachXBT wrote, criticising the apparent incompetence of the tracing firm involved.

In court, Storm’s defence attorney David Patton, a partner at Hecker Fink LLP, said the defence attempted its tracing over the weekend and likewise found no connection to Tornado Cash. Patton told Judge Katherine Polk Failla that it was reasonable to expect the government to have independently verified Ling’s claim before introducing it as evidence. Shockingly, when questioned, the government’s expert witness, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Supervisory Special Agent Joel DeCapu, admitted that he had not been asked to trace the flow of Ling’s funds and could not confirm whether they passed through Tornado Cash at all.

This revelation could prove to be a serious procedural issue. Introducing unverified testimony about key evidence, especially in a case hinging on alleged money laundering, risks prejudicing the jury. The defence indicated it is considering a mistrial motion based on the lack of factual foundation behind Ling’s testimony and the failure of prosecutors to confirm critical details through their expert witness.

The Tornado Cash case has already drawn widespread attention across the tech and financial sectors, as it raises questions about personal privacy, open-source software development, and government overreach in regulating decentralised systems. The missteps revealed in this early stage of the trial may well reshape the narrative and possibly the outcome.