The retrial of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm has been pushed to April 26, 2027, after he asked for more time to prepare. Judge Katherine Polk Failla signed the order on August 25 in the Southern District of New York, granting Storm's request and excluding time under the Speedy Trial Act through that date.
Why the delay is longer than prosecutors wanted
Storm's defense team asked for the later date. Prosecutors had suggested an October 2026 start for the retrial on two charges that were left unresolved after a jury convicted him on a related count in August 2025. The new schedule gives both sides roughly eight extra months. That's a big gap, and it reflects what's still pending in the case.
Storm has a Rule 29 motion for acquittal still on the table. That motion asks the judge to throw out the conviction that did stick. The retrial on the other two counts can't move forward cleanly until that's resolved. The judge's order doesn't say when she'll rule on the acquittal bid, but the trial date gives her room.
A schedule of deadlines before the retrial
Before anyone gets back into a courtroom, there are filing deadlines spread over the next year. Government expert disclosures are due February 5, 2027. Defense disclosures follow on March 5. Then come Daubert motions and motions in limine, both due March 30, 2027, which is when the judge will hear arguments over what evidence and expert testimony is allowed.
The final pretrial conference is set for April 20, 2027, just six days before the retrial is supposed to start. That's a tight window, but it's typical for a case where the schedule has been set this far out.
What happened in the first trial
Storm was found guilty on August 6, 2025, of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. That was one of the charges against him. The jury deadlocked on the other two counts, which is why there's a retrial at all. The unresolved charges are what will be back before the jury next spring.
The case has been closely watched because Tornado Cash is a cryptocurrency mixing service. The government's argument has been that Storm and his co-founders built a tool that allowed money laundering. The defense has maintained that the code itself is not a business and that Storm didn't control how it was used.
Now the retrial is set for the end of April 2027. Before that, the most concrete next step is the government's expert disclosures on February 5. That filing will give a sense of what the prosecution intends to prove the second time around. And if the Rule 29 motion is granted before then, the retrial may never happen.
