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Ross Ulbricht's Lawyer Requests Suppression Of Silk Road Evidence

Posted by Unknown on from the go-long dept.

Despite a failed attempt to have charges dismissed, the alleged Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht's lawyer has filed a new motion to have evidence dismissed, citing recent court rulings in an argument that the Silk Road related searches were overly broad. From the article: Dratel [Ulbricht's lawyer] argues in his 102-page motion filed last Friday that "the government conducted a series of 14 searches and seizures of various physical devices containing electronically stored information ('ESI'), and of ESI itself from Internet providers and other sources. Some of the ESI was obtained via search warrant, but other ESI was obtained via court order, and still other ESI was obtained without benefit of any warrant at all." ...

The defense lawyer argues that even the searches for which the government had a warrant were overbroad and based on evidence that may have been obtained illegally. The attorney writes: " As set forth ante, all of the searches and seizures conducted pursuant to warrants and/or orders were based on the initial ability of the government to locate the Silk Road Servers, obtain the ESI on them, and perform extensive forensic analysis of that ESI. Thus, all subsequent searches and seizures are invalid if that initial locating the Silk Road Servers, obtaining their ESI, and gaining real-time continued access to those servers, was accomplished unlawfully."

7 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Normal lawyer stuff by jjn1056 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We all know his lawyer has the burden to basically try anything and everything between now and (possible) sentencing to get the client off or reduced penalty. The system is adversarial on purpose. What will be interesting to some of us is to see if there was anything used here to find him that is really pushing the limits right. I mean the official story I hear is that he was found with old fashion leg work more than anything else. I am interested to know how true that might be. I think a lot of us are worried some of that mega NSA power is being serendipitously shared with law enforcement, and then they cover it up. We have some reason to think that is and has happened.

    --
    Peace, or Not?
    1. Re:Normal lawyer stuff by jythie · · Score: 4, Informative

      Compared to the other arguments his lawyer has used, this one might actually have promise. I would not be surprised if this one took longer to try because they were actually taking it seriously. Even with lots of legwork, if the final evidence was collected illegally it could very well be inadmissible, and standards when it comes to this type of evidence are still in flux with investigators not having clear rules to go by yet.

    2. Re:Normal lawyer stuff by rmdingler · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I mean the official story I hear is that he was found with old fashion leg work more than anything else. I am interested to know how true that might be. I think a lot of us are worried some of that mega NSA power is being serendipitously shared with law enforcement, and then they cover it up. We have some reason to think that is and has happened.

      If a tool exists that eases the human labor necessary to accomplish a task, and that tool is within reach of the aforementioned human, the tool will not sit idle.

      It would be fairly easy to work backwards from the fruit of the poisonous tree with some old fashioned leg work. It's not that we know that's what happened, but it merits a mention for the defendant's day in court.

      --
      Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

      Ernest Hemingway

    3. Re:Normal lawyer stuff by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Based on the indictments it's hard to know how he was found. The indictment certainly gives a plausible explanation for how it happened - he was sloppy about linkage of his personal and alter-ego accounts online, but as noted in the articles, there are certain gaps and inconsistencies in the story and parts of it may have been filled out retroactively (the notorious "parallel construction"). Apparently what his lawyer is hoping, is that they get a judge who feels like putting the FBI in their place with respect to such issues, and it turns out that they found the Silk Road servers via some NSA related trickery then worked backwards to find Ulbricht, then worked out a plausible but untrue alternative explanation for how he was located. Such a thing if found to have happened could plausibly throw a spanner in the entire prosecution.

      However, it seems a long shot.

    4. Re:Normal lawyer stuff by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's worth noting that it was the DEA who gave 'parallel construction' its notoriety (check out the delightful lesson plan!). I would not want to be the guy whose continued freedom depends on finding a court willing to poke the issue, much less for The Notorious Silk Road Internet Drugs Kingpin; but it certainly seems like a case where the matter would be very likely to come up.

  2. Wouldn't it be ironic? by maroberts · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If a court did throw out all the evidence, and as a result they had to return all the Sold Bitcoin?

    --

    Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
    Karma: Chameleon

  3. CCE is a manager of drug dealers by raymorris · · Score: 5, Informative

    CCE has nothing to do with being in prison. The requirements for conviction under Continuing Criminal Enterprise are that the defendant:
    Managed or supervised
    a series of
    felony
    drug offenses
    involving at least four other people.

    That actually sounds a LOT like "running a drug market", which about right.

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki...