The Silk Road's Alleged Right-Hand Man Will Finally Face a US Court (arstechnica.com)

It's been nearly five years since the FBI surrounded Ross Ulbricht in the science fiction section of a San Francisco library, arrested him, and grabbed the laptop from which he had run the dark web drug bazaar known as the Silk Road. Ulbricht went on trial in a New York courtroom, and is currently serving a life sentence without parole. But even now, the Silk Road saga still hasn't ended: Half a decade after Ulbricht's arrest, his alleged advisor, mentor and right-hand man Roger Clark will finally face a US court, too. From a report: On Friday, the FBI, IRS, DHS, and prosecutors in the Southern District of New York announced the extradition of 56-year-old Canadian man Roger Clark from a Thai jail cell to New York to face newly unsealed charges for his role in Silk Road's operation. The indictment accuses Clark, who allegedly went by the pseudonyms Variety Jones, Cimon, and Plural of Mongoose in his role as Silk Road's consigliere, of crimes ranging from narcotics trafficking to money laundering. But even those charges don't capture the outsize role Clark is believed to have played in building and managing the Silk Road, from security audits to marketing, and even reportedly encouraging Ulbricht to use violence to maintain his empire.

"As Ulbricht's right-hand man, Roger Clark allegedly advised him of methods to thwart law enforcement during the operation of this illegal ploy, pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process," writes FBI assistant director William Sweeney in a press statement. "Today's extradition of Roger Clark shows that despite alleged attempts to operate under the radar, he was never out of our reach."

Comments

Re:Was there a reason to add the 'finally'

[110010001000]

"Finally" means that it has been five years since his arrest.

Re:Was there a reason to add the 'finally'

[HornWumpus]

Kids don't die from standardized dosages. They die because they're young and stupid and street drug strength varies widely.

Legalize good, old fashioned, wholesome cocaine, heroin and LSD. Keep the untested 'test chems' illegal.

Ask yourself: Is it illegality that stops you from shooting up heroin? Would you start if it was legal?

Re:Was there a reason to add the 'finally'

[Zontar The Mindless]

Perhaps you're forgetting that lots of other things were sold through Silk Road, and not just drugs--things like murder for hire?

Re: Was there a reason to add the 'finally'

[Type44Q]

Weed and 'shrooms come from the earth; LSD was a bioweapon. Yeah, I know it's apparently all the rage now; that doesn't change the fact that it only comes from clandestine laboratories. Buyer fucking beware.

Not charged but referenced

[BankRobberMBA]

So, I am not saying that this is what happened in this instance, because I could not bear to RTFA, but in the Federal system, this is allowed.

When a federal defendant is convicted of (or pleads guilty to) a felony, the judge is allowed to also sentence him/her to additional time/conditions for unindicted crimes, so long as the additional crimes are considered relevant to the original criminal conduct (thus the term: "relevant conduct"). Problematically, relevant conduct charges do not have to be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, merely on the 'preponderance of evidence'. This just means 'most likely he did it'. Also, this determination is not made by the jury (assuming it was a trial case), it is decided by the judge.

One problem this causes is that it puts the defense counsel in an awkward position. How much energy does he put into figuring out what prosecutorial assertions will be used at sentencing, and how much energy should he put into refuting them? Remember that the prosecutor has WAY more resources to put into each case than the defense does.

Another problem is the resulting radical disparities in sentences. I was locked up with a guy who went to trial on a (large) drug case. He beat the government on 11 out of 12 charges, the remaining charge should have carried a little over 10 years. Instead, the judge was offended that he fought so hard, so she enhanced his sentence with almost every single casual allegation of the prosecutor. He wound up with 365 months (yeah, over 30 years) for a single charge, first time offender, non-violent drug offense.

Technically, sure. As long as you object to the sentence AT TIME OF SENTENCING, you have a right to appeal. However, if the judge details why the sentence is appropriate to the crime and circumstance, there is very little likelihood of having an appeal heard.

This is further complicated by the effect of the Pre-Sentencing Report or Pre-Sentencing Investigation (PSR, or PSI). This is the report of an investigation completed by the US Probation office that details the offense and relevant statutes. It's a whole other kettle of fish, to big to go into here.

Re: Thailand

[Reverend Green]

Thailand is a literal tyranny and a US-inspired police state. Really a shame he's so enthused about brutally repressing political dissent - otherwise Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha is a fine administrative leader and a friend of public transport.

That said, their judiciary is *at least* a corrupt as ours. So indeed if you have a big enough suitcase full of money you can probably do whatever you want. Guess Uncle Sam most have offered the Thai judge a bigger bag of cash than Clark could afford.

Thailand is one of the few places where a prisoner probably is genuinely better off getting extradited to America.

Re: Was there a reason to add the 'finally'

[Zontar The Mindless]

How many of those "ads" were placed by the Feds??

That's irrelevant.

Relevant question: "Who accepted those ads and the money paid to run them?"

In the real world, if someone walks up to you and offers to kill one of your enemies for a fee, and you accept the proposal, you've just engaged in conspiracy to commit murder. It matters not a single damned bit whether the someone making the offer was a Federal agent or the guy who runs the fry station at the local Burgers-R-Us. You're still going down.