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Secret Service Agent Pleads Guilty In Bitcoin Theft
An anonymous reader writes: A former Secret Service agent has pleaded guilty to charges related to the theft of $800,000 worth of bitcoins during a high-profile investigation into the online drug marketplace Silk Road. Reuters reports: "Shaun Bridges, 33, appeared in federal court in San Francisco and admitted to money laundering and obstruction of justice....In court on Monday, Bridges admitted his theft made Ulbricht believe that another individual was stealing from Silk Road and helped lead Ulbricht to try to hire someone to kill that person."
It's nice to see justice working both ways, almost gives you faith in the process.
bank accounts are just data too
> He's a government employee, a
_Former_ government employee. The courts don't provide anywhere near as much lenience for former employees as for active employees of law enforcement agencies.
And if you are convinced that the US government and its courts will not turn a blind eye to criminal acts by federal employees, please review the revelations about NSA criminal and unconstitutional activities published by Edward Snowden for a recent striking example. www.wikileaks.com is filled with criminal activity by many governments: the USA is not immune. Turning a blind eye to colleague abuses is a common problem.
Not just federal employees. We see local cops getting away with murder a couple of times a week it seems.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's a big country: there are a _lot_ of local police doing good work, and it's hard, usually dull, sometimes quite dangerous work. The local officers with their boots on the ground doing the real day-to-day work are worth their weight in BitCoins.
But yes, corruption and brutal enforcement with the public as "the enemy" are terrible, easy habits to fall into for individuals and for whole departments. Some corruption is inherent in _having_ a culture large enough to require law enforcement. It's why it's so important that police, prosecution, courts, and lawmakers are kept at odds, so they can and do limit each other's power.
That Shaun Bridges was even charged at all is amazing. He's a government employee, and in most of the world it's very rare for government employees to be charged with a crimes because fellow government employees refuse to prosecute them. Thank your lucky stars, America, you are not like Australia where the press reports alleged corruption, the police ignore it, and it piles up and up and up: https://archive.is/KUTAy#cases
Nah, it's pretty much the same in America.
The difference in this case is the nature of the crime and the victim chosen. No, not Ulbricht. The victim was the federal government, because they were going to seize that money anyway. You steal from the government, or attack the government in any way, they're going to drop the hammer on you. If your victim is an individual, well, it depends in large part on the socioeconomic status of that individual. A government employee can get prosecuted for killing a poor black man, for example, but it's rare. If you're a government agency and your victim is the entire nation, you're almost certainly going to get away with it. At most you'll be told to stop, but no one will be going to jail... well, except the guy who ratted the agency out. There's a good chance he'll go to jail, if he can be caught.
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