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,

[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?

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.