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.

Comments

Terrible lawyering by the defense

[Ralph Wiggam]

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.

Re:Terrible lawyering by the defense

[hackwrench]

I read it was hampered by the prosecutor objecting to everything, and then they couldn't call expert witnesses.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sa...

Re:no attempted murder charges?

[Kobun]

If they really want to make sure he stays in forever, they'll try him on this too. Only finding him guilty of the DPR charges means that they're the only thing keeping him in - an appeal might fix that. If he is found guilty of the murder-for-hire charge as well, his chances of successfully appealing them both and getting out are likely poor.

Particularly since these are federal charges

[Sycraft-fu]

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.

"mandatory minimum" 20 years, minus 13%

[raymorris]

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?"

Spaghetti on a slick wall fails to stick

[goombah99]

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.

Re:Spaghetti on a slick wall fails to stick

[dnavid]

The biggest question not answered in the trial is how the servers were found. The defense didn't challenge on that point (no one knows why).

The answer to many questions about the defense strategy during the trial seem to be that either Ulbricht or his attorney or both thought they were engaged in an internet debate and not a criminal trial. His lawyer repeatedly failed to follow proper procedure during the trial that every trial lawyer knows, and used legal strategies that weirdly precluded them from offering certain lines of defense. For example, a critical defense assertion seems to have been that many of the pieces of evidence the prosecution used against Ulbricht were not owned by him or not his property. By making that assertion, he couldn't simultaneously assert that his rights were violated when they were acquired because he claimed they were not his in the first place. When his lawyer tried to do so, he was explicitly told he couldn't do that, as if he didn't even know.

Its almost as if the defense believed that since the prosecution bears the burden of proof, anything that had *any* alternative explanation, no matter how unlikely or illogical, automatically prevented proof beyond reasonable doubt. Which is ridiculous. I have a sneaking suspicion that most of this strategy was forced upon defense counsel by Ulbricht himself. It looks from the outside less like something an (even incompetent) attorney would do, and more like someone used to internet board sparring would think should work.

How's that BitCoin is anonymous thing working out?

[bobbied]

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.