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Ross Ulbricht Found Guilty On All 7 Counts In Silk Road Trial

Posted by samzenpus on from the throwing-away-the-key dept.

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.

3 of 257 comments (clear)

  1. Re:no attempted murder charges? by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Informative

    i finally read TFA, you are correct:

    There is also a murder-for-hire charge looming large for Ulbricht in Maryland courts relating to what prosecutors say was an attempted—but failed—hit placed on a former employee. The supposed hitman was actually an undercover agent, and the murder, which cost $80,000, was allegedly staged with fake blood and photographed for Ulbricht’s approval.

    they'll probably still try him

    but indeed, it's rather pointless, with the other charges he's not getting out of prison regardless

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  2. And which law would you have them nullify? by sirwired · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  3. Re:Spaghetti on a slick wall fails to stick by Ramze · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think the assertion is (and I'm not a lawyer, etc) that a defendant cannot suppress the evidence which was possibly obtained illegally if the defendant doesn't have standing to contest the search. If he says they're his servers, then he can contest how the servers were searched. If he says they are not his servers, then he has no standing and cannot prevent the evidence found on the servers from being used against him at trial.

    Seems odd to me, though. I would think any improperly obtained evidence should be contestable. For instance, if his buddy's statement that he was behind Silk Road was coerced, that should be contestable. I'd like to hear a lawyer's opinion on the subject.

    I'm sure there's plenty of loopholes for the prosecution with multiple 3 letter agencies involved as well as multiple nationalities. There's probably a clause that lets them do whatever they want if they suspect terrorist activity on/through Silk Road, too.