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.

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?

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.

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.

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: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]

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