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Ross Ulbricht Found Guilty On All 7 Counts In Silk Road Trial
blottsie writes Ross Ulbricht was convicted on Wednesday of running Silk Road, a Dark Net black market that became over a $100 million Internet phenomenon before Ulbricht's 2013 arrest. Ulbricht was found guilty on all seven felony charges he faced, including drug trafficking, continuing a criminal enterprise, hacking, money laundering, and fraud with identification documents. He faces up to life in prison for these convictions.
...then he deserves his punishment.
I'm sure there will be hundreds of comments here about it, but since none of us were at the trial, well really never know.
There may be reasonable doubt on the procuring murder charge, but that's an indictment for another state. It's pretty fucking clear he was guilty in law of all the charges here.
Fact is, this wasn't a service for people who wanted anonymity because they wanted to do good for the world - it was a service for people who wanted to make money without having to declare it to the society from which they benefitted.
http://www.dailydot.com/crime/...
they were dropped
lack of evidence?
i haven't been following closely, does anyone know why those charges went away?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was shocked at how bad Ulbricht's defense was. They threw out two theories, hoping to raise reasonable doubt, and both were trounced by the government's evidence. Even if Ulbricht had really sold the site shortly after creating it and then was invited back recently to be the fall guy- he's still guilty of the conspiracies he was charged with because he came back in an admin role.
I assume he picked his own lawyer and didn't have a public defender, but they were terrible. If you know you're going to court with a dog shit defense, just plead guilty and hope for leniency. Maybe the lawyer advised that and Ulbricht refused.
My understanding of the Continuing Criminal Enterprise conviction is that it means he will be spending life behind bars without the possibility of parole, with no discretion afforded in to the judge in sentencing.
If ever there was a case that cried out for JURY NULLIFICATION by fully informed juries, this is it.
He and his Silk Road may have been helping illegal activities to some extent. The persecutors [sic] certainly thought so. As do the police when they bust competitors. But a jury has the right to examine both law and facts, in this case to determine whether the help performed was actually criminal, no matter what the law said.
In refusing to thoroughly instruct the jury, the judge tampered with it! Just because SCOTUS has ruled nullification does not _have_ be to instructed does not mean it should not be.
They were less trounced by the prosecution's evidence as they were not allowed to present much of it, or the jury was advised to ignore that evidence. Not to mention some of the defense's desired witnesses were not allowed to testify. His defense was not allowed to bring up ulbricht's political ideas, like how he feels the drug war is wrong, yet the prosecution was allowed to bring up the allegations that he hired hitmen, even though he wasn't even charged with that.
Not to mention not one juror was very familiar with the internet; if you were charged with some internet related crime would you think that a jury of your peers should include people who know something about what you're charged with?
title says it all..
The idea that it should be illegal to knowingly profit from transactions of highly illegal products is not exactly an obscure or particularly controversial area of jurisprudence, nor it it an example of overly-broad vaguely-worded laws, like, say, CFAA prosecutions.
And jury nullification is supposed to be for juries to nullify illegal laws (i.e. unconstitutional ones), not laws they might have a personal disagreement with.
No Silk Road? Enjoy getting your weed from a thug in a dark alley, or worse, a cop trying to ruin your life for no good reason.
In the case where there's a state and a federal case, often the state will step aside and let the feds try theirs first and if they get the conviction, leave it with that. That is what happened with the loony who shot Gabby Giffords and others in Arizona. AZ had murder and attempted murder cases against him, but so did the federal government, since he killed a federal judge and tried to kill a congressman. AZ let the feds arrest and try him, so they incur the cost of imprisoning him in their facilities. He's away for life anyways, so it doesn't matter. In the event the federal case had failed, AZ could have then stepped in and moved forward on their charges.
I've been following this trial for the last few weeks reading Ars, Wired, TechDirt and listening to Free Talk Live. The Judge basically hamstringed the defense ruling that they should only receive the prosecution's evidence against him...the weekend before the trial began. That right there is such a fundamental insult to the basic rights of any accused that should horrify and enrage anyone who believed in our justice system's impartiality. Add that to the fact that the judge allowed the the prosecution to use the accusations that Ulbricht hired assassins to be considered by the jury even though none of that has been proven or even competently investigated, that is a massive miscarriage of justice on stupendous levels that should frighten anyone living in the US. Evidence such as screenshots implicating his guilt that could have easily been forged were accepted without question....the list goes on. They also disallowed Andreas Antonopoulos, an expert witness on understanding how BitCoin and it's blockchain works to help the jury understand what they were hearing so to form a basis on how to poke holes in the Fed's story....this is almost a blatant showing of the corruption of our justice system and it's subservience to US intelligence services as the Snowden revelations. I'm not saying Ulbricht was innocent...I don't know that...but what happened in this trial was in no way anything but a kangaroo court on display in full form. Ulbricht's guilt is still up in the air, but our government was guilty of far worse crimes merely in that Manhattan courtroom the last 4 weeks.
The prosecutors objected to everything (and the judge allowed) because the defense wanted to cross-examine prosecution witnesses on topics the prosecution had not brought up on direct examination.
The proper thing to do when you want to bring up new topics with prosecution witnesses is to also list them as witnesses for the defense, not lay out your defense case before it's your turn to do so.
And the defense tried to insert their experts at the last minute without presenting sufficient evidence that they were experts. Again, this is not an obscure corner of trial procedure. If you want to introduce expert witnesses at the last minute (and it's certainly permissible to do so), you better make damn sure all your ducks are in a row on demonstrating their expertise.
The statute specifies a mandatory minimum of 20 years:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/usc...
Good time takes 13% off of that.
However, mandatory minimums aren't always so mandatory. Due to waiting until the last minute to handle some paperwork, I once went to jail for driving without a license. That had a mandatory minimum sentence of three days in jail. I was picked up Monday night and got out first thing Tuesday morning - so about 10 hours. Later, the prosecutor said to me "time served will work, right? Monday to Tuesday, that's three days isn't it?"
indeed, assuming he was guilty, and the jury thought so. Press accounts pretty damning and red handed in the arrest. then it seems like those charges omitted what Id consider the most heinous crime: soliciting the murder of 5 people.
I loved his lawyers theory that the Mt Gox mogul was really the mastermind. That would have been such a wickedly cool story. Since the FBI seized the assets of Silk Road about the same time Mt Gox had some liquidity problems it even seemed failntly plausible. I'd love to hear what the jury made of that piece of spaghetti on the wall.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
As a defense lawyer you have to work with what you have, and sometimes you have jack and shit. My friend is a lawyer that worked for the public defender's office and of all his clients, there was only one who he wasn't sure of their guilt. So all he could do is see if the state made any procedural mistakes which could get the case dismissed (which they did sometimes) or try to talk the client in to taking a plea. If they wouldn't he'd have to go to trial with an already-lost case. He'd try his best, as both the law and his personal ethics required, but the defenses were usually pretty damn weak ass and far fetched. I mean what else can you do?
Private defense attorneys can fire their client, but PDs have to work with what they have. Also private attorneys will usually work with a client, unless they are really problematic. If they say "Look you have no hope, take the plea, you are going to jail," and the client says "fuck no I want a trial," they'll still do it rather than dump the client. They'll just warn them up front about what is going to happen.
The guy was a scum bag. I don't care about the drug-trade facilitation, but willingly and purposely moving things like cyanide, and trying to get 5 people (plus any bystanders) killed? Human garbage.
I can respect good people, and I can respect smart competent people. Ross has shown to be neither.
People are asking why he didn't just plea if the defense had so little to go on...I assume it's because it limits his options. At least a trial allows you to appeal...not sure if you can appeal a plea. Seems unlikely.
I know it might suck that drugs can't be easily bought online now, but you can't take the good (recreational drugs) without the bad (CP, hiring a hitman, illegal weapons, slavery). You don't get to have a version of silk road on a darknet where you pick and choose the services; it's all or nothing. In my opinion, the world is much better off without an outlet for illegal transactions; because most of the transactions contribute to a massive net loss for humanity.
Global warming and other natural disasters are a direct effect of the shrinking number of pirates - Gospel of the FSM
...every computer and phone in the world, shouldn't they be able to take down nearly every organized crime figure in this country at least?
Just a random question.
These are separate charges. In the case I'm talking about the whacko killed a number of people, and injured more. Some of them were just ordinary civilians, and so it would be Arizona law that would cover it. However some of them were federal employees and federal law would cover it. So he could be tried for some of the crimes under state law, some of them under federal. No jeopardy problems with that.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
Attributed (questionably) to Edmund Burke.
-kgj
I'm going to make a purely libertarian argument that in this case, murder-for-hire was justified:
Libertarianism is the belief that one should never initiate force or fraud. So given that:
1. If Fred is a robber and points a gun at Bob's Family, then Bob is justified in killing Fred.
2. If Dave witnesses the above scene, then Dave is justified in killing Fred, because Fred is the one that initiated force.
3. If Fred credibly threatens to kill Bob's Family in the future, and the only way to prevent that is for Dave to kill Fred, then Dave is justified in killing Fred.
4. If Fred's credible threat is not to kill Bob's family, but to kidnap them, then Dave is still justified in killing Fred.
5. If Fred's credible threat is to hire Gino to do the kidnapping, then Dave is still justified in killing Fred. Dave is also justified in killing Gino, because now Gino is also initiating force.
In the case of the Silk Road trial, "Dave" is DPR/Ross Ulbricht, Gino is the government, Fred is Frieldlychemist, and Bob's Family are the peaceful dealers and customers of Silk Road.
Maybe I'm late to the party here, but I only just now realized that Dread Pirate Roberts' actual legal defense was that he'd left the ship to his cabin boy, and has been retired for the past 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.
Wow, from Excellent to Normal karma in a few posts. Flamebaited even, lol Might I suggest you try Silk Road IV or whichever its up to and perhaps find some Alprazolam or Diazepam? Gotta be some parallels between those opinions and burying a nobody's opinions like mine so they won't be seen. Hopefully I can get to Bad karma with this post....batter up.
Oh, you are right, jury nullification is no more or less than the statement that a jury can acquit a defendant for any reason they damn well please and there's nothing to stop them; this is obvious to anybody that ever paid a lick of attention in 8th-grade civics class. I would hope it would only be used to refuse to convict under illegal laws, because otherwise it turns the concept of us being a nation of laws, and not men, on it's head. If a prosecution produces an unpleasant result under the law, but the prosecution is still legal, there are means (however imperfect) for the law to be changed. The jury deciding on their own that they like the defendant too much for his/her sentence is not how the law is supposed to work.
And not that your other points have anything to do with nullification, but...
The "see no evil" defense is pretty weak sauce against these money-laundering related charges. (And certainly they will get you civilly fined to kingdom come.) The idea that DPR/Ulbricht did NOT know the primary use of his market was the illegal drug trade is ludicrous in the extreme; it does not take any great leap of logic to discard such an assertion utterly.
And no, pre-paid providers do NOT benefit from burner phones. Such phones are usually subsidized at retail (plus there are real costs involved with activation) and when they are quickly discarded after a short period of time, so the provider takes it in the proverbial shorts. (But what do cell phone providers have to do with the proverbial price of tea in China? Not sure what you are getting at there.)
And, given that the police don't even need to file charges to perform civil forfeiture (I certainly usually don't agree with that practice), arguing that that was their motive for prosecuting him is also pretty silly. (However, in this case, civil forfeiture actually makes sense since nobody ever laid official claim to Silk Road's Bitcoins.)
Here is how governments can "win" their failed war on drugs:
Legalise and regulate both the use and sale of all currently illigal drugs right now.
> Ross Ulbricht was convicted on Wednesday of running Silk Road, a Dark Net black market that became over a $100 million Internet phenomenon before Ulbricht's 2013 arrest.
So he was convicted of making money the wrong way. Check. Got it. He'd be better off robbing people with a bank, or a casino, or making and selling bombs and guns, etc. Because what he allegedly did was SOOO much worse. Someone could have gotten what he wanted. That would be tragic and terrible.
> Ulbricht was found guilty on all seven felony charges he faced, including drug trafficking
So it's legal to sell a man a gun with which he can kill people, legal for a sporting goods store to sell thousands of rounds of ammunition with which a lunatic kid who never learned anger-management can murder school children, but selling a drug is... not legal? Why, because someone might use the drug to kill a few dozen innocent children and their heroic teachers who tried to protect them? This country has some seriously fucked up priorities.
> continuing a criminal enterprise
The FUCK? So if a cop pulls you over for speeding, do you get a separate speeding ticket for each second you CONTINUED speeding? It's somehow MORE illegal to do something more illegal that was already illegal? Is this like that shit where someone was arrested for RESISTING ARREST?!?
> hacking
By logging into his own e-mail account, right? Or by checking his bank balance? Since the e-mail account probably had messages about illegal activity, and the bank balance was higher than it would have been due to illegal activity, it's probably illegal to check either, since that's receiving messages about illegal activity, which is probably illegal.
> money laundering
That's where you take money that was used in illegal activity, and use it in legal activity so you can pretend that the source of the money was NOT illegal later. In other words, being punished for having made money while breaking a law. (See the thing about being given separate tickets for speeding, above). I guess if you were breaking the law and LOSING money it would be okay. Or would that be against the law too, somehow?
> and fraud with identification documents
Online, no doubt. (See hacking, above.) You know, when you sign up for email and you tell them your name is Stinky Pinky 70? (Because 69 was taken!) That's pretending to be someone else unless your name is ACTUALLY Stinky Pinky, and if your login is an identification document, that's fraud with identification documents. These sound like trumped-up bullshit charges.
> He faces up to life in prison for these convictions.
Of course he does. Naturally. Cops who murder civilians go free, people who rob million of people of billions of dollars not only go free, but get rewarded, get apologized to by the authorities, and get paid bonuses for helping their companies avoid the consequences of breaking the law. This guy gets possible life sentence(s). For what, again? Running a website? Having a business?
The US' drug policies are stupid, racist and irrational. It's time to abolish the drug "war". Junkies are SICK, and should be treated as having a disease, which they do, and our policy of making pointless war after war needs to end!
Yea, not so well for this guy.
It might be harder for the government to track you down by dumping subpoenas on banks like they are accustomed to, but you got to understand, BitCoin is just as traceable (if not more). All the data they need to trace every transaction a Coin has bee though is in the block chain for that coin, and every transaction gets published to the mining community for verification of the block chain. Once they figure out which is your wallet, all they need to do is search the records and find every transaction it's been involved in.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Anyone looking at life in prison for a non-violent drug crime is living under an unjust system.
Why is all the good stuff already modded 5, when I have mod points?
I have no sympathy for anyone who allows, encourages, or actually sells hard drugs. None. Never mind my contempt for arms dealers.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
As much as I agree that this case seems to have lots of holes in it, running a marketplace is not 'common carrier'. The important distinction is that a common carrier is paid to provide a 'connection' service, after which you can do anything you like with it. A marketplace connects a buyer to a seller, handles the money, and takes a fee for that introduction. Thus, the marketplace has to know what is being sold and whom the buyer and seller are, and further more collects the money from the buyer and gives it to the seller.
Had the Silk Road been more like a chat room, then there'd be many more parallels with the 'common carrier'. If Silk Road had provided the place to advertise goods and to connect buyers to the sellers, but otherwise kept out of any transactions, it's possible the 'common carrier' thing might work. However, as soon as SR started handling the money, it became part of the transaction, and so became implicated. As I understand it, the goods and services didn't have 'code names', so there's no way DPR could claim he thought he'd just brokered a 'cleaning' service for someone's apartment - so no 'reasonable doubt' there either.
No he was an active facilitator for _every_ transaction. Claiming that to be the equivalent to an ISP is just showing ignorance in both the silk road and ISP responsibilities.
Silk Road act as a escrow for transaction. Thus it's NOT an common carrier but a market place. Apples to Oranges.
This is the exact point I was trying to make in my earlier posts, the prosecution claims to have this blockchain evidence yet does not follow through by showing the corroborating receipt evidence that has to be present on every other computer with a Bitcoin wallet on it...they could just grab any random mobile phone off the street until they find one with Bitcoins. Only then does the evidence they say they have mean squat. The blockchain by itself on his laptop means nothing. Saying they have "evidence" like that is like saying they have a round fired from a gun barrel with unique rifling marks without needing to even prove that Ulbricht owns that gun...whats even more laughable is they aren't even saying that gun exists much less him possibly having it in his possession. The capper is what the fuck do they even show the jury as the evidence of the blockchain info? Since they obviously don't know any better, they could show a PC Rickrolling the court in a loop and what the hell would they know...FEED HIM TO THE SHARKTICONS
They could explain it well enough to show the evidence. I think I could explain with a few power point slides how this all works to a Jury, then demonstrate a few transactions and show them how that gets recorded. All that would be left is to put the publicly obtained block chains into evidence, show the transactions that involved the wallet in question and tie that wallet to the individual through inference if they destroyed the evidence or though tracing actual bank transactions where the BitCoin gets converted into cash.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101