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Silk Road Trial Defense: Mt. Gox CEO Was the Real Dread Pirate Roberts
rossgneumann writes The defense team for Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old man accused of running the online black market Silk Road under the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts, just dropped an unexpected new theory: Mark Karpeles, the CEO of failed Bitcoin company Mt. Gox, is the real Dread Pirate Roberts. "We have the name of the real mastermind and it's not Ulbricht," Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht's lawyer, said in court today. He plans to argue that Karpeles framed Ulbricht.
At this point, I don't care who the real 'dread pirate Roberts' is. I'm here for the show, and the show just got good.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You see, *this* would have been the Ripped from the Headlines story of the century.
I love, love, love this story. Murder for hire, drugs, computers, cryptocurrency, false identities, frame-ups, parallel construction. Oh man, I can't wait for the miniseries.
It's official. Ross Ulbricht is trolling the government.
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
"I am not left-handed."
Karpeles: "I'm not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund, and he's been living like a king in Patagonia for 20 years."
The agent's theory that this was done to keep the price of bitcoins high doesn't make sense. There's more money to be made in arbitrage by having the price fluctuate wildly, especially if you're the one controlling when bitcoins that are taken off the market (MtGox trades them for real money) are converted to other currencies.. A small float leaves it open to greater manipulation, same as penny stocks.
Also, why would anyone wait until now to introduce such a theory? "Oh, maybe they want to sue the US after? for damages" Not gonna happen - you have a responsibility to mitigate any damage done, and giving up the real person running it would do that. Unless he thought that he could win another way and get back all those bitcoins ... and now realizes he can't no matter what.
Just too convenient an excuse at the last minute for my tastes - and my common sense. And now he's gonna piss off the jury,because they're going to smell it for what it is - an attempt to fool the jury.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Hans Reiser tried the "somebody else did it" defense. He suggested it was somebody else, but presented no more than vague hints in that general direction suggesting that somebody else had motive. (And, of course, it was all silly hand-waving, since he later confessed and led police to the body.) For Ulbrict's sake, let's hope he has something more substantive.
The police have no obligation to investigate alternate suspects once they've decided on one to charge. If you, defendant, want to blame the crime on somebody else, you need to perform your own investigation rather than merely pointing out the police didn't chase after whomever the defendant thinks would be a more worthy suspect.
I don't know if Ulbrict has some real evidence; if he did, you'd think he would have released it by now.
Having oil traded in dollars seems to be working out reasonably well for some.
Blame the dead bank....
If this is the best he can do, I'm going out on a limb here and predicting he will be convicted on all counts....
BTC is just a cauldron of crime and deceit, it's basically used to launder money, hide assets and pay for illegal goods... Oh yea, now and then somebody does something perfectly legal using it...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
*stands*
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
at what point do they trot out Vinnie and Butch before the strongmen get rushed into the Witness Protection System? this looks like the eMafia.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I think these guys are the "real killers" too
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
and just how the hell did you get in here?
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Do you also support contract killings? Because he ordered hits on a few people.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If it hadn't been for this kids and their dog
The drag is that there probably is a more Evil character involved than DPR, much like the movie.
I predict there will be R.O.U.S. springing from the woodwork everywhere soon as well. :)
There is a lot of Parallel Construction at work as well.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Reprobates of Unusual Size? I don't believe they exist.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
He didn't.
We get the killings either way. Admittedly when the U.S. does it they use cool flying robots, but still...
Do you also support contract killings? Because he ordered hits on a few people.
The U.S. government that is prosecuting Ross pays for killings every day. Why should they have a monopoly?
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
I'd be all over that Kim Something Ill or other, and blame North Korea! After all, they have the most elite hackers in the world! Use the FBI against themselves.
I seem to originally recall when he was first arrested, that he was charged with actually having people killed.
This having been proudly announced before they actually knew who these people were, had any bodies, just ridiculously, laughable over-charging (and clearly designed to bias whatever came next).
I'm interest to see where this all goes - but so far it appears to be utter bollocks and lies (now) from both sides.
And that justification is bullshit.
Or so you've been told by the Fed^H^H^H Media.
I would like to take the time to point out to anyone thinking of doing this: Anyone claiming to be a hit man is actually a cop. That probably goes for anyone claiming to be a teenage girl who is interested in your online sexual advances, as well. Hope I've saved you some trouble.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
Where the FBI submit a swore affidavit that Kim DotCom is Dread Pirate Roberts to the New Zealand courts in a bid to further his extradition to US, because surely those sheep-loving Kiwis can't possibly resist the War-on-Drugs(tm) as a legitimate reason to let the MPAA/RIAA go after Kim DotCom for digital piracy[1].
If he wasn't under so much financial pressure (freezing of assets) I'd expect him to make a press release suggesting it himself.
But the conspiracy theorists will posit that John McAfee is the real Dread Pirate Roberts. I mean he was found in Belize of all places. What do you think it was really doing there? Creating his second, pseudonyms fortune, this time without the IRS insisting on payments. Hell, half of software multimillionaires who have been in tufts with the IRS themselves would likely support his venture on the down low.
[1] Okay, infringement of intellectual property doesn't have the same sense of dire urgency does it.
Should everybody be allowed to kill other people? Should nobody be allowed to kill other people? I don't like the consequences of either of those extremes, and the only alternative is that some group or groups of people be allowed to kill other people (presumably under certain restrictions). That group or groups will be part of the government.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Kaperles ran a company that lost a very large amount of depositor's funds in suspicious circumstances. Either he was incompetent, in which case he did things wrong, or he was malicious, in which case he did wrong things. Either contradicts "did nothing wrong".
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes