Murder Accusations Hang Over Silk Road Boss Ulbricht's Sentencing

Patrick O'Neill writes: Ross Ulbricht has never been tried for murder. But tomorrow, when the convicted Silk Road creator is sentenced to prison, murder will be on the mind of the judge. Despite never filing murder-for-hire charges, New York federal prosecutors have repeatedly pushed for harsh sentencing because they say Ulbricht solicited multiple murders. The judge herself recently referred to Ulbricht's "commission of murders-for-hire" in a letter about the sentencing, painting an even grimmer picture of Ulbricht's sentencing prospects.

Comments

Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[Black Parrot]

if the sentence is in any way based on an assumption of guilt for a crime he wasn't actually tried for.

Re:Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[Mitreya]

Well, the prosecutors are trying to carve out an exception to rules, as always. I am surprised that they haven't worked in "think of the children" into the story.

New York federal prosecutors have urged Forrester to "send a message" with a long prison sentence for Ulbricht.

And yes, IANAL, but this should not be a fairly easy appeal case:

With less than 24 hours until the sentencing takes place, however, it seems increasingly clear that Judge Forrester is taking the accusation that Ulbricht tried to orchestrate five murder-for-hire as truth in the New York case.

Re:Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[antiperimetaparalogo]

He will be sentenced for what has been tried and found guilty for, but in the same way his defence lawyer i suppose is trying ask for some mercy by presenting to the judge some evidence of the good personality of the convict, the prosecutor is doing the opposite, asking from the judge to have no (or little) mercy - i am not a lawyer, but i think this is the usual way (at least in Greece/Europe) when a convict is sentenced: the judge has the responsibility to decide for a sentence that is somewhere between the minimum and maximum the law states, based on convict's personality criteria

Re:Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[Anonymous Coward]

Did Ulbricht Pay a Hitman to Kill A Silkroad Employee?

A 'murder for hire' indictment was brought against Ulbricht but the prosecution declined to bring charges.

Indictments that aren't brought as charges infer nothing more than prosecutorial strategy, and it doesn't indicate the existence or not of a criminal action. Prosecutors typically have many more indictments than charges, and as the case proceeds they trade off indictments for the good of their case (e.g. plea bargains, shedding weaker parts, or simply the prosecutor merging indictments to bolster charges, as seems to be the case here).

The government say,

1. Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR) was the operator of Silkroad, an illegal drug-related website.
2. DPR was Ulbricht which now no one disputes (even Ulbricht now admits it, now that he's lost the case),
3. The Silkroad DPR account wanted the murder of a Silkroad employee for $80k which no one disputes,
4. A DEA agent posed as a hitman
4. Someone paid $40k to the hitman before it was done,
5. A DEA agent posed as a hitman and received $40k.
6. The DEA Agent sent the DPR account doctored photos of a dead body. DPR was told the person was tortured to death, and responded "I'm pissed I had to kill him ... but what's done is done,I just can't believe he was so stupid. I just wish more people had some integrity",
7. Another $40k was paid immediately afterwards,
8. No one was actually murdered.
9. Ulbrichts recovered laptop had his journal with an April 6 entry that says "gave [Hells Angels] go ahead to find tony76," and "sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates.", and finally
10. When Ulbricht was caught in the library his computer was logged into the adminstration page of Silkroad under the DPR account.
(source: 1, 2)

Then at trial the `murder for hire` wasn't brought as a charge, but it was allowed to be used to describe the character of Ulbricht.

Character witnesses, and character evidence is allowed in trials.

As Judge Forrest said "the prejudicial effect is reduced by the Government’s stipulation that no actual murders were carried out". Apparently the judge considered that prosecutors might be worried a jury in this landmark case might be convinced that Ulbricht was non-violent, detached from reality behind a computer, and that his operation was quite different to a conventional drug ring. The murder for hire charge was unnecessary, and it might be a better prosecutorial strategy to use the murder for hire to attack Ulbricht's character as a backdrop for all other charges, to brand him as a violent drug dealer.

Of course there's no visibility to the prosecutorial strategy process but that strategy seems possible, and so I don't think much of the fact that the murder for hire charges were dropped and instead used elsewhere.

Re:Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[Bing Tsher E]

All they can sentence him is the minimum, maximum, or something in between, for the crime he has been found guilty of. But it's the job of prosecution to press for the maximum and defense to press for the minimum.

The overall character of the person being sentenced is relevant during these proceedings. That's why there are Judges, and not just an automaton machine to behead the defendant.

Re:Sounds like good grounds for an appeal,

[antiperimetaparalogo]

if a prosecutor doesn't prosecute the "murders for hire" then how in the fuck it's just for him to use those as reasons for giving a harsher sentence? he didn't charge him with those crimes.

The prosecutor will NOT ask for "harsher sentence" -on the base that the convict is/was suspect for some other crime ("murders for hire")-, but he will just INFORM the judge deciding the sentence (for the NON-"murders for hire" crime(s)) that the convict (for the NON-"murders for hire" crime(s))... IsNoGood! In other words, he will do the opposite of what the defence lawyer will do, who will claim something unrelated to the crimes of the convict (e.g., he feeds stray dogs!) so the judge must show some mercy. I use something some anonymous wrote as a reply to me (agreeing with me): "The use of evidence of uncharged crimes is legitimate, because he's not punished for those crimes only what he's been convicted of."

it's not usual in europe for prosecutor to say that the accused is guilty of crimes he is not being charged for, as if being guilty of those crimes was a proven fact. a separate probably going through case would be grounds for lesser sentence in the one case(since the total would grow up - also, in europe in general stacing of sentences doesn't work in the same way so there isn't , as much anyways, of cases where people have sentences of hundreds of years...)

The prosecutor (and the defence lawyer) will just inform the judge about the personality of the convict - something that i think IS usual in Greece/Europe/USA when the judge decides the sentence. For example: in the sentencing phase (after the convict has been found guilty) a prosecutor may inform the judge that the convict is suspect for other crimes - this is a "hint" for the judge that the convict is not a "saint who made a mistake", so he will not show mercy.

it's bullshit and good grounds for appeal... even more so because the feds were soliciting him those "murder for hire" offers.

Well, I AM NOT A LAWYER, so...!

Could be worse

[Anonymous Coward]

He could be a scumbag working at source forge. Why hasn't slashdot posted a story about that yet? It's only in the firehose, what, 6 times?

Re:Could be worse

[Cow Jones]

Looks like this is true (here's one of the story submissions, and the Ars acticle it links to). Shame on Slashdot for trying to hide this.

Ground for appeal?

[Harlequin80]

IANAL & IANA (I am not American) but aren't you meant to be sentenced based on what crime you are convicted of? Seriously the QLD Chief Justice (Highest Judge in QLD) withdrew from an appeals hearing of a convicted child abuser & murderer because he had had a meeting with someone who lobbied for harsher sentences for child molesters.

If the sentencing judge references other non-case related matters surely that would affect the standing of the ruling and open up appeals?

Re:Ground for appeal?

[Hussman32]

Normally if a prosecutor were to infer additional crimes not discussed during trial, the defense attorney would say 'Objection!' and the judge would immediately reply 'Sustained.'

As an earlier poster said, if the sentence is out of bounds for what he was tried for, he'll have a strong case for an appeal.

Re:Ground for appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are correct, though I am not American either.

"United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005), is a United States Supreme Court decision concerning criminal sentencing. The Court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to jury trial requires that, other than a prior conviction, only facts admitted by a defendant or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury may be used to calculate a sentence, whether the defendant has pleaded guilty or been convicted at trial. The maximum sentence a judge may impose is a sentence based upon the facts admitted by the defendant or proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt."

Wikipedia, but probably ok for this.

Re:Ground for appeal?

[Anonymous Coward]

No. US v. Booker is about "enhanced sentencing," that is, a judge giving a defendant a sentence greater than set by statute. Normally, a prosecutor can use almost anything to push for the maximum sentence. Simply put, if crime X has a statutory sentence of 3-5 years a prosecutor can bring in uncharged crimes to get 5 years. US v. Booker is about going above the 5 years (in my example). In Booker, Federal guidelines only allowed a 21 year sentence but the judge gave 30 years due to additional evidence given during sentencing. The SCOTUS ruled that enhanced sentencing can only be based upon facts proven beyond a reasonable doubt to the jury and sent it back down. Booker got 30 years again but ended with 27 years due to sentencing law changes. Additionally, the SCOTUS said that the sentencing guidelines themselves were advisory and not mandatory.

In the case of Ulbricht, the evidence that he might have had someone killed or hired someone (or whatever it is) can come in to say that he should get the max sentence for what he was convicted because he's a bad guy. He won't be convicted or sentenced for murder.

Re:Ground for appeal?

[Copid]

Unfortunately, I think the range of sentences the US considers reasonable for drug related crimes varies between, "we force you to be seated in The Comfy Chair for an hour" and "we nuke your city of residence and sow the radioactive fields with salt," so if he's given the harshest sentence, it will be very hard to tell the difference between "harsh drug sentence" and "fair drug sentence biased by a whiff of murder for hire."

If you've convicted the guy of hiring hit men, by all means, throw the book at him for that. But this sounds incredibly sketchy.

jury duty and double jeopardy

[Anonymous Coward]

This reminds me of the last time I had jury duty. The prosecutor spent a huge amount of time explaining how if we were selected for the jury and were to find the defendant guilty, then at sentencing time there would be a free-for-all where they'd present information about other past alleged crimes that weren't part of this case (and I think for which the defendant had previously been tried unsuccessfully, my memory is foggy), and we'd be expected to set the punishment in the context of the full list of alleged crimes, not just the current crime for which we were convicting him. He waved his hands endlessly insisting that this was not double jeopardy, and the judge even made a statement that this was so.

To me that situation would be "trying" the defendant for the same crime twice in every practical sense of the word, just merely not "trying" him in the technical sense. Anybody have more experience/insight on this? Is this legit or is it an end-run around constitutional protections that everybody in the legal system has just collectively agreed on?

Re:jury duty and double jeopardy

[SydShamino]

The one time I was on jury duty, after we found the guy guilty (of robbery), the prosecutor tried to bring up a history of similar crimes in a different state in the 1970s. The defense attorney objected, we were kicked out of the room for 4 hours, and when we were brought back in, we were told that the old records of supposed past crimes were incomplete and had been rejected as evidence.

At the same time, though, the defendant had waived his right to jury sentencing, so we didn't have to mentally exclude those while contemplating his sentence. Instead the judge just gave him the maximum allowed time and we went home for dinner.

So, in the one situation where I have first-hand experience, the judge wouldn't let the prosecutor allege and allude to past crimes - even arrests and convictions - if the paperwork wasn't in order.

Re: jury duty and double jeopardy

[31415926535897]

I don't know the legality, but it seems shitty. Think about how it could be easily abused.

"The defendant has a history of abusing children and assaulting police officers. He has cheated on his wife and hadn't paid his bills. Consider all of this when you determine how he should be sentenced."

Utterly reprehensible if this is legal. This is what children do. If I were on a jury, I'd be inclined to give the most lenient sentence possible.

Re:jury duty and double jeopardy

[Em Adespoton]

The one time I was on jury duty for attempted murder, we were constantly leaving the room while they discussed what could be allowed to be said in court. Both the victim and the attacker had ties to organized crime, and prety much everything they said and did had links to other court cases that had either already happened or were pending. It was pretty easy to figure out what we weren't hearing from the direction the questioning was going each time the judge called a halt and asked us to step out. At least with that judge, unless the accusations had witnesses who were in court and were used to indicate character, and the accounting had no impact on other cases, it would not be allowed.

So in this case, if the officer who moonlighted as the guy arranging the hit was called on as a character reference and used this story in that context, it might be admissible and affect the weight of the sentencing. If it was just thrown in as hearsay, that would be grounds for mis-sentencing, and a new judge would need to be called for the sentencing (not for the finding of fact).

Re:This was a 'Show Trial' at best...

[DaHat]

Secret evidence, discovery denied for obvious things...

When you get a hold of the accused laptop which is logged in and has ample evidence of being an administrator of the site in question... what exculpatory evidence do you think existed that could have gotten him off that he was denied?

And they proved Tor is not secure; arguments to the contrary are just not convincing anymore.

Tor is secure if you use it right... many do not. Bitcoin however we did find is far from anonymous and the evidence in the blockchain could be used against you years or even decades after your illicit purchase.

This cannot have been legal???

[Anonymous Coward]

As I recall, the reference llines from Law & Order are "Objection, hearsay your honor" and "Objection, if the prosecution has any evidence of these claims why hasn't my client been charged?"

It's standard procedure to have other defame or stand up for the defendant personally ("Goes to character, your honor") during a trial but I'm pretty sure there's a line drawn at explicitly accusing someone of a heinous felony to this end. In fact it needn't even be a felony I bet: You cannot accuse the defendant of something illegal of which they have not been convicted precisely because of that silly innocent-until-proven-guilty thing.

Not, with "parallel construction", "civil forfeiture", or the CIA knowingly holding and torturing people it knew to be innocent, that the US legal system actually practices *that* any more.

Re:This cannot have been legal???

[suutar]

It's still an unproven allegation at that point. The judicial system may have decided that bringing that stuff up at sentencing is not forbidden, but it's still a dick move in my opinion.

Now, since such charges are pending in a different venue I don't expect it to make a practical difference in the long run; he's still likely to be in for life. But effectively he's going to get sentenced twice for the same crime.

Re:Dear Mr Judge

[Em Adespoton]

Well no -- in this case, it was the state that first of all posed as a resource that had carried out hits in the past, and then later responded to his request, first to "send a message" and later to "take him out". They instead staged the whole thing (the guy who was supposed to be killed actually being held by the state at the time the hit was arranged). So at least in one of the five cases, they knew exactly what he had said/done, because they were involved in setting it all up.

So charming.

[Jahoda]

Oh, so now in the sentencing phase we're going to be punishing you for crimes that the state couldn't charge you with, presumably due to being unable to prove in a court of law? Nice. Also, not surprising.

Re:This was a 'Show Trial' at best...

[DaHat]

First off, even getting that laptop was fruit of the poisoned tree because they got it using evidence the NSA gathered through illegal wiretapping programs.

Citation?

Even then, Ulbreit admitted he built the site. He just didn't run it during the period in question. The entire point of the name "Dread Pirate Roberts" is that anyone can use it.

So he admitted buying the gun and evidence puts him at the murder scene... but you are still going to fight the idea that he pulled the trigger? You can be an accessory to a crime without directly taking part.

But then lets just ignore the other evidence on his laptop which did show him being a more active runner of the site than you suggest.

Besides, the site did use Tor correctly.

Really? So you've personally audited it and certified that in your capacity as an AC Tor expert?

FYI: Posting to Stackoverflow with your own name when trying to learn how to setup a Tor hidden service isn't the brightest thing when you are trying to not have the site tied to you.

It didn't help because the NSA has infiltrated Tor, which should surprise no one, because it was originally built by the US DOD anyway.

Like many, I'm still waiting to see/hear of these secret backdoors in Tor that were somehow inserted not through rouge check-ins... but through large checks to the Tor foundation.

Lemme guess... 9/11 was an inside job?

end-run around constitutional protections

[frovingslosh]

or is it an end-run around constitutional protections that everybody in the legal system has just collectively agreed on?

The Constitution isn't perfect, but it is better than what we have now.

Malware Accusations Hang Over Slashdot Media Head

[Khyber]

http://slashdot.org/submission...

http://slashdot.org/submission...

http://slashdot.org/submission...

Re:You seem to talk much like the Prosecutor...

[MichaelMacDonald]

I've read a lot about this, and this guy broke the law, knew he was breaking the law, and got caught. He, pretty much, told them who he was - openly. They caught him red handed with all the evidence he could ever need. The legal system isn't acting in any way that isn't legitimate. Plus, he probably did hire people to kill people. Which, no matter how I feel about draconian drug laws, I will never get behind or agree with. I'm as anti establishment as the next guy, but there is a point where you have to say, lets look at another case...

Re:This was a 'Show Trial' at best...

[rahvin112]

They KNEW he was DPR because he solicited advertisements for the site in various places including USENET using traceable accounts when he set it up. How they found the server is an open question but not really an issue given the other evidence they already had including the seized laptop. They probably had him under surveillance for months.

They had a lot of evidence he was DPR and he's admitted it in filing since. Regardless of his trial arguments that he wasn't running the site anymore there was plenty of evidence he was.

How they found the server and copied it before they got him is an open question but it's probably a very small piece of evidence for how they got him. They didn't get him by getting the server, they got him the old fashioned way. Even if the server was gotten through NSA help it wouldn't have impacted the conviction. My bet is that they did something like they did with DPR 2.0, they infiltrated or compromised the site enough to get it to install a homing beacon and reveal it's true location.

DPR 2.0 was more careful and couldn't be tied as easily so they infiltrated the sites support and developed enough information to identify him. The problem with these sites is that to really make them function you need to use javascript and running javascript on TOR is a big no no. It's right in basic warnings they give you when you download TOR that you should under no circumstance allow javascript to run because it can do a lot of things that will identify you. All the feds had to do with Silkroad 1 and 2 was hack in enough to get a rouge script running that would identify the server and anyone that connected to it.

Doing TOR security properly isn't trivial, it's actually quite hard. And building a secure website is even harder when it has to be secure against ever sending data out over the general internet. On top of that you can't use JS or allow any of it to run and you have to watch security like a hawk because if your security isn't PERFECT you are done. Perfect security is very very hard.