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Two former federal agents are expected to be arrested on Monday on charges of stealing money while working undercover on an investigation into Silk Road, the once-thriving black market website for drug dealing, a document shows.

Read more: http://www.coinspectator.com/dea-agents-in-silk-road-case-face-fraud-charges/ (http://www.coinspectator.com/dea-agents-in-silk-road-case-face-fraud-charges/)

any chance this would give ulbricht a window to climb out?

Yes.  Prosecutorial misconduct.  It can have VERY far reaching implications.  Now, the prosecution is easily shown to have reason to lie.  About this - and other things.  This is VERY good for Ross.  I am pretty sure his attorney will be asking for a retrial by the end of the week.

Do you know how they stole the money? I would think to make their theft worth the risk it would be several hundreds of coins, would that not raise any red flags?

Sadly there is about as much chance of Ross seeing freedom in his lifetime as there is Chelsea Manning. Zero percent.   :(

Sorry dude - you are wrong.  It fucks the whole case up once you know the prosecutors team is lying.  He might get a walk if this gets too ugly.

Here is the complaint against their own Federal Agents: http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf (http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/30/criminal_complaint_force.pdf)

"Carl Mark Force IV" - pretty cool name.  Maybe even cooler than: "Dread Pirate Roberts"

I am amazed any federal agents are being held accountable for this, they really want to set an example of btc users, I think partially to scare people from using it

Usually evidence tampering will get the defendant acquitted. If the agents are found guilty then Ross may have some chance of freedom.

the government should also payback all users funds as well/

Me too i am not sure it will stick though, does anyone know the amount supposedly stolen by them? I can get threw to the article until i get on another computer. They steal anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand and get screwed if true and their department steals 100's of thousands and charges ross for crimes, funny old world. That won't set an example of bitcoin users if anything people will want to know what bitcoin is making agents get sticky fingers. So many smoke and mirrors agents stealing from their own site that should read.

"Sadly there is about as much chance of Ross seeing freedom in his lifetime as there is Chelsea Manning. Zero percent."

IIRC, there was no plea bargain, and a jury trial. Now, imagine you are a juror, and the defence
has just demonstrated that the prosecution witnesses are liars, thieves, and felons. Would you
convict on that testimony? In most countries there would be no question, he would walk.

"Bridges allegedly diverted to his personal account over $800,000 in digital currency that he gained control of during the Silk Road investigation.  The complaint alleges that Bridges placed the assets into an account at Mt. Gox, the now-defunct digital currency exchange in Japan.  He then allegedly wired funds into one of his personal investment accounts in the United States mere days before he sought a $2.1 million seizure warrant for Mt. Gox’s accounts."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-30/federal-agents-investigating-bitcoin-money-laundering-stole-over-1-million-bitcoin

You are absolutely right. There is 0% chance of Ross Ulbricht ever released from the prison. He is one of the prime targets of the bankers. That said, imagine what the bankers will do to Satoshi, if they are able to identify him.  ;D

Im sure satoshi knew this, Im glad they cant find him

This is a HUGE HUGE blunder by the prosecution.
If there is ANY precedence here, and I would bet that there is, Ross might very well get off.
Any legal experts?


It is hard to put into words how the prosecution must feel right now, but I'll try with a picture.
http://qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-98930470785c03eef88ea369c109166b?convert_to_webp=true

And Ross...

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/uploads/image/get_out_of_jail_free.jpg

Has this already been posted?
http://www.dailydot.com/crime/dpr-alpacino-french-maid-silk-road-2015/

No telling how many Bitcoins they made selling cocaine to the SR folks :-\

The level of profit mongering from these two is quite impressive!

I hope every case they have touched in their entire career falls apart.

CNN has the story too. http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/30/politics/federal-agents-charged-with-stealing-bitcoin/index.html

It's nice to hear one of them is also being charged with running a scam exchange after all the scam exchanges we were ripped off in.

Wow what an interesting turn of events. Still doubt Ulbricht will get too much of it. I think his lawyers should definitely try tough.

Interesting tweet here: https://twitter.com/JDratel/status/582636014872723456 (https://twitter.com/JDratel/status/582636014872723456)

And very interesting replies:
 jlaw ‏@jlaw101 56m56 minutes ago

@texteditorSA @ClausHoumann @JDratel @valdesjo77 Carl Force was heavily involved in the investigation.
0 retweets 0 favorites
jlaw ‏@jlaw101 56m56 minutes ago

@texteditorSA @ClausHoumann @JDratel @valdesjo77 "The DEA official, Carl Force, was "the lead undercover agent in communication" with DPR"
0 retweets 0 favorites
Sam Braverman ‏@SamBraverman 38m38 minutes ago

@JDratel I would say I'm stunned, but nothing stuns me about these prosecutions. The more they want you, the more they'll do to get you.
0 retweets 0 favorites
Anonymous ‏@AnonyOps 28m28 minutes ago

.@JDratel Surely this info was extremely relevant to the trial, since it speaks directly to the trustworthiness of DEA testimony. #SilkRoad


IAS

I'm calling it now.  Ross gets 2-4 years with probation after this all settles a while from now.

Why isnt the bitcoin community going to Washington and demanding Ross freedom, we can see how courrupt the gov is, now they should do the crime and take responsibility in there own infrastructure.  If we all march now, we can save him.

The state just 100% nuked their own case... re-trial will be coming soon. It will be VERY hard to get a jury to know what is real and what was set-up now, prosecution is going to be in for a nightmare. I think they might be forced to do a deal now.

That is scandal, huge thing. Silk road admin will benefit from this.
Hard to find right words at situation like that.

This might be his only shot. Hopefully he has a very expensive legal team.

Crazy turn of events, you really couldn't make this shit up.



Makes you wonder if DPR was coerced into "hiring a hitman."

It was all bullshit!!!  Seems like the gov has corruption on there side and people need to get into the street to free Ross right at this moment. AQUITT HIM OF ALL CHARGES, IM thinking MTGOX paid the gov off and setup ROSS in the end. Put Mark Kapales in jail.

Exactly, I was just telling my coworker about this that he needs a retrial and my coworker was like "Does Ross have the cash for a retrial?" I'm like bro, do you not know how many people support Ross in the bitcoin community? If his parents started a crowdfund to pay lawyers for a retrial I guarantee it would be fully funded in a week.

lets get tomatoe cage to fund raise, im seriously donating, lets get something going so the parents can fight the Gov and there bullies.

Contributions go here:

http://freeross.org/

Read more of the charges. Tbh, I think it is a forgone conclusion at this point. They blackmailed him from multiple angles and on their own.

That charge is not only no more, but it looks like corruption from the prosecution may very
Well have thrown away their case. Quite fitting actually. That said, with the judges very questionable
Actions regarding evidence submission, don't think the corruption won't continue.

Remember we said BTC is an anti corruption trojan horse?  ;D

oh shit buy bitcoin prices are going to fucking rise to the stars

Yeah people keep thinking bitcoin is super anonymous but it only is if you keep quiet about what you are doing. These agents were communicating with big name exchanges through emails and freezing customers accounts and stealing their bitcoin so the fraud here is easily traced on the blockchain once you can attribute any bitcoin wallet address to one of the agents.

Awesome, that is one of the best things I've read recently.  :)
What an embarrassment for the corrupt Gov't.

you know what this means for bitcoins, a price rise to 500!!
buy buy buy

Great idea, let's show some passion!
I need funding for my trip, who wants to donate.  ;D

I'm no lawyer, but if Ross were to be released/acquitted/not-guilty etc I would imagine that he would have the right to get his property back. It would obviously be paid back in cash, but then maybe he would back his BTC and store it safe this time.

He is looking at a possible life-sentence. I think he'd settle for freedom

yeah he can go after them, after he is free

This isn't prosecutorial misconduct. Firstly, it's not misconduct by the prosecutors. Secondly, I'm not sure that the prosecutors were under a duty to disclose this. The agents did not testify, so this doesn't go to their credibility (Giglio). It's not exculpatory, in that it doesn't tend to negate the guilt of one of the elements of the charges against Ulbricht. That means it's not Brady. And of course it's not under the Jencks Act because the agents didn't testify.

It figures if they thought they could get away with it, they would attempt something like this.

Large sums of money like this are very tempting to people.

I don't think any. Brady allegations--allegations that the government had exculpatory evidence that it failed to turn over--are very hard to win.

I don't see how it's legally relevant.

corruption with the feds means shit could had been faked, lied, false evidence since there was corruption involved in the case

Exsmactly. Ross gotta go to jail for running a drug empire, tough beans. But these two crooked agents gotta go to jail for a separate context. One trial is about drugs, the other is about money fraud. But both are crimes.

Life behind bars for running a website. What will these crooked officers get for raping the public trust?

Oh... I see, If Ross deserves Life without parole for running a website, then in your opinion what would be the quantum of punishment given to people like OJ Simpson and Oscar Pistorious, who have murdered people?

Much of the evidence used in the trial was collected via the agents who are now being charged with extortion the person they were investigating, no? If that is the case, then it would appear that throwing doubt on what parts of their investigation were true/real and what parts were fabricated would be pretty easy, no? At least enough to interfere with the juries ability to reach a verdict, correct?

Does this not also amount to entrapment on some level? Seems like the government can usually get away with entrapment, but, something like THIS!? I would be surprised if "nothing" changes in the coming weeks. There needs to be a re-trial at the very least - reasonable doubt is now in play for many charges, no?

 

I don't think so, no. Given that these agents did not testify in trial, I imagine that their testimony was not used to lay down chains of custody for any evidence at trial. And that their testimony was not necessary to prove any of the charges against Ulbricht.


Entrapment is not what you think it is. Entrapment is an extremely narrow type of legal argument, that depends on a defendant successfully arguing that absent the government action, they would not have done what they were alleged to have do. That's a pretty laughable argument against Ulbricht, given that he was running SR long before the federal agents became involved.

Just reading the reporting from this, I would think "nothing" will change. I'm sure the defense team will file some motions, but I don't think any of them will be successful. After all, from the reporting I read, the defense knew about this already, and the judge precluded them from bringing it up during trial. If the judge didn't think it was relevant then, it wouldn't be relevant now.

It's really incredible, at least to me, that you can have agents who are investigating you fabricate and extort you during their investigation and that this can have no ill effects on the findings of their investigation!

I believe you, btw... you obviously know a lot more about the case and law than I. I just find it somewhat strange that something like this can be allowed to remain outside of the trial. If the agents made up a number of claims and "crimes" that were supposed to be committed, I find it very hard to prove in court what charges and accusations are in fact real and which are fabricated - at least so that the jury could feel they have grasped the situation beyond a reasonable doubt.

Thanks for you answers, I'm glad to learn more about these issues. I will follow what happens from here on out. 

Happy to answer questions! I usually get shouted down because I don't follow the bitcoin hive-mind.

I don't think the agents made up "claims" or "crimes" that Ulbricht was supposed to have committed. But rather they committed crimes themselves, by stealing some BTC. I don't think anything that they did demonstrates that Ulbricht did not do what he was convicted of doing.

Yeah, well, try to look at it this way: the FBI and government is a big place. If you have a criminal case A in New York, say, and some agents in Chicago that aren't on the case commit some crime, there's no reason to bring that into trial, right? We can all agree there. Now let's say you have criminal case B in Los Angeles, and the agents in that case commit a crime, they testify in the trial, and the court doesn't let in evidence of their crimes. We can all agree that that should be in the trial. So what about something more in the middle, like what we have here? We have agents on a team (a team that, in all likelihood, was probably pretty large given the scope of the SR case) who commit a crime, but don't testify at trial, and whose crimes don't, ultimately, exculpate Ulbricht. Should that come in? I would think not, and I expect the judge will agree.

Those DEA agents had no right to take that money. That was money the U.S. government could have used for police/military gear and police/military salaries to uphold freedom in the only free and great country on Earth, and also to uphold American freedom by setting up military bases all over the world. This gives the American government no choice but to print more money or to declare more things illegal so that more money can be rightfully stolen.

They did much more than steal some bitcoins according to the indictment. The investigators, in an effort to conceal their criminality and in bad faith did systematically conceal and destroy material evidence collected during their investigation. The investigators had administrator access to the Silk Road systems which they used to rob the silk road service and then framed the original owner of their admin account for the theft (and then, with another account, offered to conduct a "hit" against that admin to extract more money from DPR) in one of many (successful) extortion attempts they carried out over months-- spanning back long before the government had any idea who DPR might be (e.g. in April 2013 they believed it was "A.A."). Their unlawful actions were not limited to SR, e.g. Force ripped off a random user of the CoinMKT exchange to the tune of a quarter million dollars where he was moonlighting (against policy and in a conflict of interest) as their compliance officer. When Force's improper use of an administrative subpoena (to attempt to unblock his rightfully suspicious-flagged account) was reported to his  superior by Venmo (a payment processor subsidiary of Paypal) he responded by attempting to seize Venmo's accounts.

Lets put aside for a moment Force and Bridge's roles as law enforcement and read their indictment as though they were just private individuals. Considering their access, strongly established involvement (e.g. the money trail connecting _them_ to SR appears to be much stronger than the money trail connecting Ross to SR), established pattern of fraudulent and vindictive activities including framing C.G. for the theft of bitcoin; they'd make a nice direction to throw doubt at the prosecutions claims and support of Ross'  "it was someone else" argument.

Consider the counterfactual with the character portrait painted in their indictment in mind: If Force and/or Bridges had had the opportunity to take over the operation of SR (from which they could rip people off on a greater scale), would they have done so? I think the picture painted by the indictment says yes. If they had and Ross pissed them off, would they have framed him? I think the indictment says yes (or even without pissing them off: They seized MTGox's US accounts immediately after successfully getting their own funds out (to the detriment of everyone now suffering from MTGox's insolvency)). I think this is a much more powerful line of argument than "maybe magicaltux did it", at least. They destroyed evidence related to their own interactions with magicaltux (and appeared to have made a successful unlawful forfeiture against MTGox as part of their criminal activities). In the story told in the indictment, these parties had the motive, the means, and opportunity that would have permitted them to frame Ross in order to conceal their own criminality (or to protect someone else who was paying them more); and the defense was apparently prohibited from presenting this in the trial.

No doubt the prosecution did their hardest to separate out  any potentially poisoned evidence, but these parties were the states only inside eyes inside silkroad. It seems unlikely to me that any of the later evidence was derived in isolation of their input, but regardless: it appears that they'd heavily spoiled the crime scene before any of the other investigators arrived.

What this actually means in terms of the actual law and procedures in the court, but I can't imagine that it would have had no effect on the jury unless they were prohibited from hearing it, nor can I really imagine them being prohibited from hearing it if it had been anything other than law enforcement agents (e.g. if it had just been other random criminals).  But they were. I can't imagine why the defense didn't delay the trial so that more of this information could be presented.

This information has certainly made a number of strange things I observed make more sense.

Edit: Ah, I see Ross' attorney has made a statement: http://freeross.org/ulbrichts-attorneys-statement-regarding-silk-road-corruption/   Seems that I called at least part of their approach, plus apparently the state used the existence of this other prosecution to suppress other evidence from being presented.  Hopefully Dratel will now move to have whatever relevant filings or orders were made regarding this unsealed, so we can get a more objective view of how much this prejudiced the case.

Team America! Fuck yeah!

I would never make a good cop because I would be tempted to steal shit all the time.  "Oh look, this belongs(ed) to the bad guy, no one will ever miss it..."

I can see how this would happen, it probably happens more than is ever found out.

Oh yeah?  Haven't you ever heard about 'fruit from the poisoned tree'?  Force4 was the lead investigator.  Every bit of evidence is derived from his original efforts.  There is no evidence which does not come from the work product of a criminal whose efforts were per se adverse to Ross' position.  

How do you like them apples Legal Beagle?

The Judge won't change her mind - I agree with you on this point.  But request for retrial is an action taken against her.  No doubt she won't agree with it.  But on appeal, a different judge will decide the tree question. 

Blackbird0's position is that there were multiple investigations. It's possible (I don't know the case well enough to know) that the other investigation was separate enough that that argument doesn't hold weight. You can see my prior post for another argument that depends less on that, but at this point in time it's not entirely good what good it will do. While the argument I gave might have sewn doubt for a jury, the jury didn't hear it and unless they're able to argue that this mess is of the right shape they won't get  a chance to try that argument in a trial court.

I think it happens all the time.  One way to prove that is to consider how casually Force4 did things.  He didn't bother even a little bit to conceal his identity - just the opposite, he was showing off his badge when wiring funds all over the place.  A guy who spent his career following these kinds of trails knew his tracks could VERY easily be followed.  He just believed they would not be followed because he was a cop and cops do this all the time and get away with it all the time.  If he felt they would come looking for him, he would have been far more tidy with his activity.  The reason he was so wantonly careless is because he and his coworkers had been doing this for many years and getting away with it.

The most awkward moment/period in a cop's career is probably the icebreaking period when they test to see if the other cops are on board with their plan. I wonder what strategies they use to test when another cop sees eye to eye with them. It must be such a sigh of relief when they realize the other cops have been wanting to steal the valuables too.

An interesting fact is also the following:

If you steal take money from anybody that he has earned through any kind of business, be it legit or illegal - you are a thief and will be prosecuted if caught. If the money is earned from illegal business, it's called illegal proceeds. Anybody dealing in said money is defined as criminals.

Now, If you put a label on yourself, calling yourself "government", you now have a free card to use any money as you see fit.

For example, if an illegal operation makes 10 million dollars, and this is confiscated by the government, the government can use it as it sees fit, lastly shown with the auction of silk road bitcoins.

It's quite interesting that one standard applies to the people, and another standard applies to the government. It sure's got to have everybody bow their necks in respect and accept their overlords.

Now, when some actors within the government decides to go about this nefarious business themselves, they're caught. What makes their actions worse than the actions of the government?

Now, if everything was fair, any bitcoins, gold, silver, cash or other valuables from criminal proceeds should be  destroyed and not benefit anyone.

Since US police is known for taking cash from travellers on the road, who's controlling that this cash does not go directly to the pockets of the officers.

It's also interesting to see the general attitude of many people thinking that the cops are on their side. Sure, there's good cops, but overall the cops are the hands of the government, and their goal is to enrich themselves, as such, the agents that took these bitcoins are no different but the government themselves, they all just want to grab the money..

In my wild youth I witnessed drugs being confiscated much more often than people being arrested for drug possession. They would pretty much just steal the drugs and tell you to fuck off.

what do you think about the possibility that we discover in the future that the Mt. Gox implosion had something to do with those agents/US gov.?

Very well thought out post, not to mention reasonable.

I think many here are being caught up in what some are trying to portray as a black and white issue of Ross Vs. the State and are overlooking the actual State's workers throughout the trial. You can't separate the two. You can't say "legally" that what Ross did is wrong when the actual evidence collectors had access to the site (the Admin account no less!) and were blackmailing him for money and setting him up with murder for hire. ALL THE EVIDENCE is now tainted.

I really wonder if the Judge was influenced (a lot) by the governments demands of this case being too "important" to lose (especially in light of Cannabis legalization spreading like wildfire and the whole basis for the War on Drugs going with it in most likely hood.) I say the former as the judge disallowed all of what is coming to light now. I mean, that is ridiculous and seems more like the Judge was hell bent on putting Ross away rather than having anything resembling a fair trial.

This is going to be much more than a made for TV movie. This is a 5 year series in part on how the war on drugs failed, for starters.

Ross' lawyers have gone into some detail here regarding things: http://freeross.org/ulbrichts-attorneys-statement-regarding-silk-road-corruption/ (http://freeross.org/ulbrichts-attorneys-statement-regarding-silk-road-corruption/)



Ulbricht’s attorney’s statement regarding Silk Road corruption
March 30, 2015 ● Lyn's Blog   


The government’s considerable efforts at keeping this monumental scandal from being aired at Ross Ulbricht’s trial is itself scandalous.

In addition to:

1. Keeping any information about the investigation from the defense for nearly nine months;

2. then revealing it only five weeks prior to trial;

3. then moving to keep sealed and secret the general underlying information so that Mr. Ulbricht could not use it in his defense at trial;

4. then stymying the defense at every turn during trial when the defense tried to introduce favorable evidence;

the government had also refused to agree to the defense’s request to adjourn the trial until after the indictment was returned and made public – a modest adjournment of a couple of months, since it was apparent that the investigation was nearing a conclusion.

Throughout Mr. Ulbricht’s trial the government repeatedly used the secret nature of the grand jury investigation as an excuse to preclude valuable defense evidence that was not only produced in discovery, independent of the investigation of Mr. Force, but also which was only at best tenuously related to that investigation.  In that manner the government deprived the jury of essential facts, and Mr. Ulbricht of due process.

In addition, the government failed to disclose previously much of what is in the Complaint, including that two federal law enforcement agents involved in the Silk Road investigation were corrupt.  It is clear from this Complaint that fundamentally the government’s investigation of Mr. Ulbricht lacked any integrity, and was wholly and fatally compromised from the inside.

Also, it is clear that Mr. Force and others within the government obtained access to the administrative platforms of the Silk Road site, where they were able to commandeer accounts and had the capacity to change PIN numbers and other aspects of the site – all without the government’s knowledge of what precisely they did with that access.

In light of the information provided in the Complaint, it is now apparent to all just how relevant some of the issues raised by the defense at trial were, including:

1. The payment by Dread Pirate Roberts to a law enforcement agent for information about the investigation;

2. The ramping up of the investigation of Mr. Ulbricht in mid-2013, soon after that paid information began  flowing;

3. The creation of certain evidence at trial, such as the 2013 journal that conveniently begins – again – in Spring 2013, after the corruption alleged in this Complaint ripened.

As the evidence at trial – particularly from the government’s law enforcement witnesses – demonstrated, the Baltimore investigation and agents were inextricably involved in the evolution of the case and the evidence, as well as with alerting Mark Karpeles that he was under investigation, and meeting with his lawyers and exchanging information.

At Mr. Ulbricht’s trial, knowing full well the corruption alleged in the Complaint made public today, the government still aggressively precluded much of that evidence, and kept it from the jury (and had other similar evidence stricken from the record).

Consequently, the government improperly used the ongoing grand jury process in San Francisco as both a sword and a shield to deny Mr. Ulbricht access to and use of important evidence, and a fair trial.

Joshua L. Dratel

It is well known that Mark Karpeles was the one who stole all the money from Gox users. And Gox was based in Japan. There is ZERO chance of any US involvement.

I'd previously thought how easy would it be for law enforcement officials working on a case like this could just simply steal bitcoins by just sending them to an address they controlled. I think this sort of thing could become more widespread and fall under the radar with possible rogue agents working for the NSA. Imagine if they have access to all our internet traffic and date and mobile phone logs it probably would be very easy to just steal peoples coins. This is the big issue with all this NSA spying because who polices the police?

Do the police who police the police beat the shit out of the police and steal from them?

As you're a hero member, I assume you're just joking? If not, I beg to differ.

It does not matter much what country it is, history has shown that agents from the US has been capable of doing operations also on foreign soil. And who's really to hold them responsible when they do so?

So there's in reality a non-zero chance. I would not put money on it, but the possibility is not nill.

Yes, many do feel U.S. is mean and scary government and should leave everyone alone

This show how deep corruption, and if Ross is not acquitted this is proof that its all the way to the core of it.   

you cannot say there's a 0 chance. as Cryptowatch.com said USA has been capable of doing operations also on foreign soil. they could have obtained by one way or another access to mtgox server and steal/froze/seize all the BTC. that can also explain why Karpeles once said that BTC were not stolen but temporarily frozen/unavaiable.

"Fruit of the poisonous tree" doesn't mean what you think it means. It's derived from the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment. It generally means that one cannot use the fruit of an unconstitutional search. It does not mean that if someone does something that we think is bad, everything that flows from those things is inadmissible. So ... since this isn't a fourth amendment issue, the doctrine does not apply. I need not belabor how badly Ulbricht's defense team screwed the pooch during the suppression hearing by denying a property interest in the server. But even that issue is irrelevant as to the admission of evidence during trial.

I also don't know what you think "per se adverse" to a position means or how you're using it. Law enforcement is always adverse to a defendant and a target.

Given that Ulbricht's defense attorneys evidently brought this up to J. Forrest and attempted to introduce this evidence, it's obvious that this entire issue was briefed under seal, and Ulbricht's defense attorneys were not able to show any connection between these alleged criminal acts by the agents and the defense that Ulbricht was planning to put on. It sounds like the judge probably thought it was irrelevant, that its probative value was substantially outweighed by its prejudicial affect. Such a decision would be reviewed on appeal for an abuse of discretion, which is an extremely deferential standard of review.

See my above response regarding "poisoned" evidence.

Ultimately, your argument comes down to, "From reading this indictment, I think that there must be evidence that these agents planted some or all the government's evidence that was used against Ulbricht." Given that it appears that defense made that argument under seal to the judge, and the judge rejected it, I'm guessing that there was no evidence of the sort. Thus, this entire series of events with the agents is simply irrelevant and speculative: simply because these law enforcement officers essentially stole and embezzled money does not mean that Ross Ulbricht did not commit the crimes which a jury convicted him of doing.

Had the officers testified, then of course it comes in, because it's relevant to their personal credibility. But they did not (wisely) testify. Indeed, they may have been able to assert a privilege had they done so.

Are you basically saying that these two corrupt cops, one of which was a lead detective in the case (not just the murder for hire charge), that stole money from Ross, entrapped him for murder, blackmailed him, had access to the sys Admin account, etc. - that that has no bearing on the validity of the evidence which puts him behind bars? Are you saying that having key corrupt officials on the prosecution is a separate issue from what Ross did when their evidence/work arguably had a decent factor in his conviction? This makes no sense and I'm trying to really see your point here.

All the defense now has to work on is how these two corrupt cops had help in giving but 1 little tiny bit of false evidence. It appears they got them for damn near everything and they are deeply tied to not only the evidence, but to the actual SR site, Admin account! Had they been legit you would just have hoped they were not corrupt, but now they are. We see: what they did, the depth of what they did, the ways in what they did what they did, how the judge disallowed obvious connections/questions, etc from being admissible in court. The list goes on. This is an absolute travesty. I will not look at this situation, as disgusting as it now has become, through simplified legal jargon when every sense in most peoples bodies right now is screaming to them: "Alert, Alert, Alert something is really really wrong here."

Sometimes those within the system (any system really) can't see outside that system. They are so "in"trained in that system the craziest of things make sense to them, because it fits that "systems" way of think, and ironically enough can be disproven in a court of law (just need reasonable doubt). And right now it seems like there is much much more than reasonable doubt going on about that trial. I feel a lot of your argument is trying to use (legal) semantics to make your point valid but all it does is try to exclude people from really seeing what is right in front of them by controlling perspective.

Sorry but my subconscious just let this through.
http://meedogenloos.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1984.jpg

Really, it sounds like your argument boils down to: these cops did some bad things, therefore the other cops did bad things. Moreover, those bad things go towards whether or not Ulbricht was guilty and/or the credibility of witnesses who testified.

Generally, we tend to eschew this kind of guilt by association. Just because two officers on the Baltimore team were corrupt and committed crimes does snot impugn the credibility of officers on another team. Just because two officers on the Baltimore team were corrupt and committed crimes does not mean that Ulbricht did not commit the crimes he was convicted of committing.

I'm not condoning what these officers did. Nor am I suggesting that these are the best practices for law enforcement or prosecutors. But it is difficult to say, from what has been publicly disclosed, that these officers' committing crimes is exculpatory as to Ulbricht.

The truth is coming for all of us boys and girls, the information age is here. Soon there will be nowhere left to hide. No more shadows.

lol this guys is slippery!

https://i.imgur.com/RWG5Gi5.png

https://i.imgur.com/DSArukc.png

https://i.imgur.com/8pCuMpN.png

https://i.imgur.com/3EbqFiz.png

Correction to my post.  It turns out that it wasn't the case that MTGox did nothing to piss off Force and Bridges; it seems MTGox earned their ire by failing to respond to a shakedown request: http://imgur.com/a/ecQ5T (ah, Magicaltux's email screenshots are inlined in the post above).

(Force asks for 250 BTC as part of a 'partnership', Magicaltux doesn't respond, he sends more emails... later the send an "I told you so" email; the same day they filed for the warrant to seize MTGox's funds)

That sounds like a question of fact, not of law. The judge may have erred in rejecting it.

In any case, I don't disagree with you; I was just presenting an alternative view (As you can see, I've defended your position in other posts.)-- I don't think the position I outlined is likely to go anywhere.

Well, it may be a question of fact, but that doesn't mean it goes to the jury. Federal Rules of Evidence require judges to determine whether or not evidence is rightly put before the jury. I would imagine that the government argued the FRE 403, or the rule against irrelevant evidence, should prohibit this type of evidence. I imagine they argued that the prejudicial effect would substantially outweigh the probative value of the evidence.

And sorry, I hope I haven't sound defensive and I appreciate your posts. Generally on these forums, posting any sort of reasoned legal analysis gets you shot down. I understand the impulse to defend Ulbricht: people don't like the bad press against bitcoin. But bitcoin, like fiat currency, and like any tool, can be used for things we think are good, and things we think are bad. This country has chosen to criminalize the drug trade and money laundering, and Ulbricht clearly violated those laws. That he used BTC rather than USD really is of little matter. Now some people might think that the drug trade should be criminalized at all, but that's really quite apart from all this. When people wake up and realize that everyone who uses bitcoin is good and not everyone who wants to use USD is evil, our community will great great strides.

The other Mt Gox employees have talked about the robbery and they have given the details. According to them, stealing the coins from Mt Gox offline wallets is possible only with the help of Karpeles. How can the FBI steal coins from an offline wallet, which was accessible only to Karpeles?

Huh? What are you talking about? I'm only saying these two guys (and NO ONE else) had the ability to taint the evidence and we already know they knowingly did. They did this regarding the murder for hire. Yeah, it doesn't get much worse than cops working on a case using "inside information" to extort money from a person.

Don't distort my argument or try to red herring this.

Do you get paid by the post from the Fed or ?

http://meedogenloos.nl/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1984.jpg

Ulbricht wasn't convicted of murder-for-hire. I imagine because of the problems with the Baltimore investigation.

You are using the word "taint the evidence," which is a legal term of art, which you are not using correctly. I stated above why it is being used incorrectly.

It's certainly bad that these officers extorted Ulbricht and others. That's why they are being prosecuted for crimes. But the fact that they committed crimes does not impugn the convictions against Ulbricht. The government's argument, and one that I find persuasive is that the Baltimore investigation was separate from the New York investigation, and no evidence used in the trial came from that Baltimore team.


These kinds of ad hominem attacks don't do you any credit.

I am sorry my friend, but I think you are gonna need a few more years of law school; fancy as you may already be.

Force4 as part of his efforts as lead investigator DID a search.  Because he acted criminally during that search - it became an illegal and unconstitutional search.  Evidence developed from that unconstitutional search - and its derivatives must be excluded from the prosecution.  

Ad homimem attacks don't do your arguments any help.


Firstly: the government's position is that no evidence from the Baltimore investigation was introduced in trials. So even accepting your faulty premise, there is no evidence introduced in trial that is the "fruit" of these agents' actions.

Secondly, acting "criminally" during a search does not make it unconstitutional. The touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is "reasonableness," and the question is whether or not the search was valid under the Fourth Amendment. There were suppression hearings on the Fourth Amendment issue, and Ulbricht lost. He lost for totally different reasons--because he didn't assert a property interest in the things searched and seized. So even if somehow all these things were connected to the searches Ulbricht tried to suppress (see point one, they were not), and even if this was a Fourth Amendment violation (it was not), the search could not have been suppressed because Ulbricht did not assert a property interest in the thing searched.

2 separate investigations but with the same people? Is the information wrong that has stated that Force was the lead investigator? He had the SR Admin password? I don't see how you can separate the two investigations.

And regarding the ad hominem, it was a real question. I found your argument quite deceptive and hence the question, Are you a paid poster? I'm not attacking your person, just questioning it.
If you want to talk about logic that is more important to our arguments, let's start with your summarizing my points into something I didn't say nor even imply. I wonder if you even read the post to come up with your conclusion in the prior post (not quoted)  I'm not sure which logical fallacy that is??? I'll bet on "Non Sequitur" - Comments or information that do not logically follow from a premise or the conclusion..

An regarding the word "taint the evidence" being used incorrectly. Fine, I might be guilty. But the point stands, those two detectives already have been accused (thoroughly so) with some heavy crimes. They "tainted" in the sense of could have "planted/distorted" the evidence (they had direct access and in some cases created it.) I mean they have already knowingly done this, the question is just how much and where and of course, did it affect the outcome of the case. My bet is probably but we'll see during the re-trial, if there is one.

Why do you think that ad homimem attacks don't help?  I think they help immensely - you moron.  

as to 'reasonableness'  -  was it reasonable that the government was in there searching - in part - to gain a position from which it could lob extortion attacks?  That seems somewhat unreasonable to me.  Also, to say that New York didn't get any derived information from Force4 is nonsense.  Force4 and his illegal searches developed the identity of Ulbrict.  EVERYTHING which came later - was fruit of the poisonous tree.  New York - or Baltimore both teams derived and developed evidence from a bad and illegal search which should be held unconstitutional.  You can't have a fucking pig deep in the act of abuse of color - and argue reasonable.   I call raging bullshit.  (what kind of attack is that?)

I'm not sure I've got this straight, but it's likely that the investigation into actions of these agents has been going on for some time. If so, then as Ulbricht's trial was going on, the federal government knew that it likely had a big mess on its hands internally.

So is it reasonable/possible that they worked hard to scrub the prosecution's case to keep it clean of any evidence of contamination from Force and Bridges? If so then Ulbricht's conviction may hold up. But if they did not do this and evidence from their activities was used, then it looks like he may have a serious opening.

Carl Force was not the LEAD investigator. He was the lead contact with DPR. He was part of the maryland group called "marco polo" the maryland office just knew what the new york and other offices were doing, but they all had separate investigations. My gut feeling is that Russ might get a new trial, but that doesn't change a lot of the facts, but i dont see how they can keep the murder for hire charge, they would have to call Carl as witness and he would just plead the fifth, unless he cuts a deal. Force is going to prison for a long time. Lets hope the government doesn't screw this one up...

One thing that even the most argumentative bastard on this site, of which you may very well be, cannot argue with is the following: Those filthy fucking dirty cops, like so many other similar cops, were reprehensible in their activities.  Cops, and lots of them, are dirty as week old laundry.  The difference is, a little soap will put the laundry back in good order.  Dirty cops are filthy for ever -  you don't ever really put them right.  

I imagine there will be a few fellows in jail for drug related offenses.  I wonder what they will think of their new DEA roommate.  I imagine ol' Force4 will get a bonus with his sentence.  That bonus being the anger of his new peers.  Force4 is well fucked - and he deserve it too.

What you say is most likely exactly what happened.

That possibility you just mentioned sure does fit like well fitting glove, now doesn't it? I believe when I saw the trial notes that is when I really started to question
the case. Though going in I couldn't imagine the trial would be fair.

For sure they will do everything in their illegal and legal powers to make sure Ulbricht doesn't go free. But that said, the case can
fall apart and would be even beyond corruptions manipulative hands. They are on their heels now. This is not small thing.
I would not at all be shocked at a Dismissal, but they can't have dancing in the streets, now can they?
And they sure as Eternal Life don't want a made for TV movie or series, ending where he gets let go and the war on drugs basically collapses a few months later.  ;D

It looks like a "well fitting glove," because it's something done very frequently in federal prosecution.

Let me sketch out an example of how this is done.

Let's say a confession is take from a suspect in violation of their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and Miranda v. Arizona. The government cannot use that confession in court. Moreover, the government prosecutors cannot use any of the fruit of that confession. So the government regularly will set up two teams of law enforcement and prosecutors. A so-called "taint team," that knows the confession, and a "trial team" that takes case to trial. The taint team screens all the evidence to make sure it isn't tainted with the unconstitutional confession, and then gives the untained evidence to the trial team.

While a procedure quite as rigorous as that would not have been necessary here, because there is no unconstitutional taint, I bring it up to demonstrate that federal prosecutors are familiar with segregating different components into different teams in order to avoid similar problems.

Thank you, gmaxwell, for that excellent informative summary.

I just want to add one little-known detail:

CarlForce is the brother of ArtForz.

Live by the fed sword, get rekt by it in the end when you think your expertise is too high.

I've got to say that I'm very surprised that these guys went rogue like this when they had such great jobs, thinking they could pull this move and get away with it. Unless, they were sold on the anonymity factor that really doesn't exist. I think hubris did them in and I feel for their families at this point.

I don't think anyone will argue that cops are superhuman. The PoPo is just as human and just as fallible as anyone in any other profession. You are correct. He was a person of low moral and ethical standards because that's who he has always been. You can give all the psych evaluations you want to cops and there will always be kooks that slip through the net. Bad cops don't worry me. The most they can do is kill a few people. Air Force pilots flying around and submarines sailing around with live nuclear warheads scares me. Not a happy thought.

How do you know this? If that's true, why would he need to steal BTC? ArtForz has tons of it, and I'm sure he would have just given Carl some.

Edit: And who is/was Carl on Bitcointalk.org?

Greed!Greed!Greed!

Thanks a lot for sharing that info. It helps to better understand things.

Has anyone seen any legal experts comment publicly on the case now?

No problem.

I saw that the government made some filings yesterday/today. There's more than 100 pages, including the government response. I'll take a gander at reading it and post something here.

For all we know he could have been a great and lawful officer for 99.9% of his career but we must remember than everyone has a price and can succumb to greed. Maybe he just saw the opportunity to make some easy and what he thought would be victimless cash. When you're sat at your computer and all it takes is a few clicks to transfer massive amounts of anonymous money from a drug lord greed can always fall over you, but that's obviously not excusing it. In this line of work you need to have some restraint or you'll push yourself down a dark path and he's obviously facing the consequences of those actions now.

Alright.

I've taken a gander at the recent pleadings filed. Let me begin with the caveat that these are just my thoughts, and they are obviously based on incomplete information, both because I don't have all the pleadings, and some of them of these recently unsealed pleadings still have redactions.

I'll summarize the government's position as to the problems with the defense's argument:

The defense's argument is essentially that account "flush" which had admin access, was used to plant evidence that Ulbricht was DPR. Force (the DEA agent) had access to the "flush" account. As we call may recall, "flush" was controlled by Green, who was the target of the murder-for-hire that "nob" (aka SA Force) and DPR were involved in. Green subsequently cooperated with the government, which is how SA Force got access to the "flush" account. This have happened on Jan. 19, 2013, which was subsequent to his arrest on Jan. 17, 2013.

These are problems with this theory:

• There is evidence on Ulbricht's computer linking him to DPR long before the SA Force had access to "flush," and long after. Ulbricht locked out the "flush" account on Jan. 26, 2013.
• Even assuming that "flush" reset the DPR account and then planed info using it somehow, Ulbricht always had root access to the server, and could have regained control.
• DPR signed communications with a PGP key that was on Ulbricht's computer. SA Force, with access to "flush" or even the DPR account, could never have gotten the private PGP key.

Judge Forrest considered an extremely broad discovery request by defense. Judge Forrest did not accept the defense argument's that this information is exculpatory, though the defense's arguments are redacted in the order. Ultimately, the only new information is that SA Force was being investigated, and that the previously known fact that "flush" may have stolen 350K worth of BTC was already known to DPR and to the defense.

Ultimately, defense always was able to put on its theories regarding technical capabilities, and it didn't need any of the SA Force information to do so. (That they didn't do so because of their ludicrously late expert disclosures, is, of course, another matter.).

***

Really, I think the best argument that defense could have had was to delay the trial. But I would think such an issue would be reviewed under an abuse of discretion standard, and J. Forrest's decision would be upheld, particularly in light of the information known at the time of these December 2014 motions. It seems particularly unlikely to succeed before Defense didn't make any kind of argument with particularity as to what exculpatory information would be uncovered during the Force investigation.

***

Subsequent to this, defense tried to bring the SA Force thing back into play by attempting to admit hearsay evidence from "DeathFromAbove" (aka Force) to DPR on the SR messaging system where "DeathFromAbove" accused DPR of being a Mr. Athavale. It's clearly hearsay, and J. Forrest rightly excludes it. All other evidence linking Athavale to DPR was highly circumstantial and speculative. Moreover, other evidence demonstrates that DPR did not take DeathFromAbove's threats seriously, and that the identifying of him was "bogus."

Maybe but I still believe that some people can guard a truckload of cash their entire life and never be tempted because it's not in their makeup. People with no integrity and no morals take the first opportunity to prove themselves if they think they can get away with it.

Hard to tell. To others they may appear trustworthy but nobody can no for certain if they ever had doubts about stealing the money. I think greed is just part of being human and everyone can succumb to it at some point regardless of how moral you may or try to be. Sometimes situations pop up in your life that alter your morals or behavior too. What if a person becomes in debt or needs it to save a child etc? Desperate measures sometimes call for desperate measures.

That is true, I've seen it myself. I used to live in Oakland.

I'd say greed is just a lack of understanding. This is more a consciousness "thing" than a genetic one (at this stage in our development).
We've been sold on Survival of the Fittest, when it is in actuality Flourishing though Cooperation.

Yeah, so am I. I lived near the park in downtown Oakland. The Oakland zoo was a short walk from my house and has a free community day once a month. I used to go to the zoo every month and watch them. That was my favorate exhibit. I'd watch the monkeys for hours.

ILMAO cause you guys are talking about monkeys

why should we be so surprised when agents of the government steal? The whole government is a ponzi scheme anyway

Can we get some citation for this?

I never considered myself to be a bad person, but I will admit that my morals and ethics are somewhat.... flexible.  If I ever came across some Bitcoins or cash, there's a good chance I'd be considering the options.  Would I get caught, did anyone see me, are there security cameras, etc.

I never understand why these FBI guys, of all people, would keep the money in banks and accounts, even in foreign countries.  If I ever got my chance to obtain a lot of Bitcoins, it would be converted to cash at the first opportunity, and places in short pieces of PVC pipe, sealed up, and buried in various locations.  In cash, no records, no one knows where it is.  Minimal evidence pointing to me.

There's a time to be good, honest, moral, and ethical, and then there's a time to GRAB THE MONEY.

Thanks for your insights in to this complex issue. I understand entirely your points viz the separation of the two cases.

I'm surprised that the informed view is that the involvement of corrupt DEA officers in one part of the case could be so insulated from other areas to the degree that a person has been denied their right to freedom.

I always believed there was a higher standard expected from state prosecutors, but seemingly no longer.

Dirty cops? No way... Too thin by a mile. The only thing this Silk Road drama needs to make a full feature film is a dirty politician and a love interest. Good luck, g

I just want to come in and say that it's not that everyone has a price, it's that people who feel they lack a certain level of well being have a price. Do you think you'd be able to corrupt Bill Gates? Ok granted some billionaires seem corrupt bit it's not that they are corruptible it's that they now have the power to corrupt others (by swinging the carrot of cash in front of them). I think there is a middle ground where you are not so broke that you can easily be corrupted and you are not so rich that you want to corrupt the world to fit your needs. In essence if people who worked certain risky jobs were actually paid their worth and not pennies there would probably be less corruption.

So I just wanted to say the system needs to be fixed so that more people make a decent living wage if you want to lower incidents of corrupted cops, workers and misc serviceman. That's just my 2 cents ^_^

Well ... from what the government says, the DEA Team in Baltimore didn't give any evidence to the DEA Team in New York. So yes, it sounds insulated.

I partially agree.  The problem is that there is no way to see into a man's heart (forgive the lack of gender neutrality) no matter the level of scrutiny.  Therefore, even the saint of saints cannot be validated as incorruptible.  The public is becoming more AWARE every day that a badge does not an honest person make.  The courts are beginning to acknowledge this as well.  Man, I could share some crazy stories about police corruption at any level (local, state, or federal).  Believe it or not, this isn't a new phenomenon, it's merely being recognized more so than before.

corrupt feds, what's new?  Maybe Ulrbicht will get a new trial out of this

FWIW, I'm personally convinced Ulbricht is guilty.  I bet he's going to get a retrial, but I'd bet on him going to jail anyway.  Bitcoin angle aside, Ulbricht is just another crook.  There is absolutely nothing special about him.  He did what crooks do, he got caught like crooks get caught, he's going to jail like crooks go to jail.  

Force and Bridges on the other hand are special.  They are corrupt Lions, and they are the people who are supposed to be taking crooks down.  Police corruption is not merely bad, it's WORSE than anything an ordinary crook can do.  Those guys?  I want them to rot in jail.  Not just for stealing or extortion or bribe-taking or money laundering or all those other ordinary-crook kinds of things that they could and should do time for - although they deserve jail time for that too.  But the horrible thing, the poisonous thing, the thing that absolutely cannot be tolerated in a nation that aspires to be free, is this: I want them to rot in jail for betrayal of the public trust.

I hereby cite Tomatocage as Most Gullible (and Legendary) Bitcointalk reader of the month, and it's only the second of the month.

Yeah, absolutely thieves belong in jail as does corrupt police. Not much more to say about this affair really.

Good luck, g

+1!

Bolded-
Interesting, because what Ulbricht did is against the law, you just throw him under the bus with all the other "criminals". Ross did what he did because the war on drugs was killing and hurting way more people than it helped (for starters). It was hurting the planet. It enriched the wrong people and governments, a tax on the poor. He sure wasn't living a kingpin lifestyle and a quick view at the life he lived showed he was a great guy by every account. So, he created a website which allowed people to freely trade whatever they wanted. Yeah, lots of it was drugs, lots of those were legal drugs without prescriptions (I hear).

To side with law because it is law, removes ones ability to think. And it is not such a crazy thing to say. The war on drugs is a HUGE failure and it was designed to be, it is a war against people and their consciousness. Cannabis looks to be going full legal over the next few years and our government is being forced to compassionately and rationally reconsider these archaic laws. The silk road brought down violence by all accounts. Silk Road(s) are not actually needed, but they are just speeding up the inevitable legalization of drugs, breaking the corrupt monopolies that certain... groups possess.

BTW - From every account, Ross sure is special in many peoples opinions. You can see it here, on Reddit, on podcasts, etc.

Its about sharing

Every day the United States government has less legitimacy in authority, less legitimacy in the use of violence against any individual. How long until we get our Mohamed Bouazizi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohamed_Bouazizi)?

I agree, I think Russ will get a new trial, but the results will be close to the same, he may get of on one or two counts, but probably not. Russ did what he did way before Carl and the shaun were dirty. Russ is guilty, imho, but the baltimore case and NY case were totally separate, they collaberated every once in a while, but most of the time, they did their own thing. (ive read pretty much every document released) Carls main job was to be DPR's friend and a mafioso type person, hence the murder for hire, but from what I read, when dpr wanted to do the first murder for hire, Carl just asked what he need to be done, he didn't push him one way or another, so I also think that the murder for hire charge in baltimore still may stick, although its not as cut and dry as it was before carl went rogue..

lol dammit!

At which point is the suspension of disbelief too much?

Been following this for a while now. Pretty crazy story and I have a feeling it's just begun. Will be interesting to see the movie in a few years   :)

Hacked by "rogue secret service agent"

lmao

All his posts were soliciting for business. But the crowdfunding reference ( since gone) would have been fun to look at!!

Ross Ulbricht may get some jail time, but it shouldn't be 30 years.  Maybe a year or two.

Yes, he created Silk Road, but he never possessed any of the drugs for sale on it (probably), and he didn't buy the drugs (again, probably).  He merely facilitated a way for others to buy and sell drugs and made some nice coin on the side from sales commissions.

Those people would have bought and sold their drugs one way or another even if Silk Road never existed.  So putting Ulbricht in jail does not serve justice or help anyone.   Aside from making a website that specialized in drug sales, he didn't actually do anything wrong.

You're right, other than facilitating international illegal drug distribution he didn't actually do anything wrong. He's no worse than a mule that brings drugs to the U.S from Mexico. It's not like he was selling the drugs. Why are they being so hard on him?

Lol. Charlie Shrem got a couple of years and his charges were minute in comparison. He'll be lucky to get anything under 20 years. His only hope is if they can prove wrongdoing by the feds on an appeal.


Wrong. According to his own diary he kept he was the very first seller on there selling shrooms he grew.



Not quite. I think you need to read up on the case and the charges against him. He also allegedly facilitated or helped to organize certain big drug deals. There's also the murder for hire charges and money laundering etc.

Charlie Shrem did nothing wrong.  Ross Ulbricht did nothing wrong.  The burden of proof is not on the accused.  We are all supposed to be presumed innocent.
Growing and selling a fungus shouldn't be a crime no matter what politicians say.
We now know why the murder for hire charges were dropped.  It turns out they were facilitated by a DEA agent (allegedly) to cover up his own theft of bitcoins.  This jury would have blindly found Ulbricht guilty on any charge that was put in front of them so I always wondered why they didn't just include the murder for hire charge as well.  Now we know.  Ross Ulbricht should have never been tried in the first place let alone serve jail time.  All the evidence against him is tainted.  The only reason he is in jail is because the government wanted to save face and put someone in jail in this high profile case.  They knew they were going to have egg on their face but they wanted to have at least a scalp to point to as a victory that made it all worthwhile.  Incarceration is a racket that punishes both prisoners and taxpayers.  Only the most dangerous of criminals need to be incarcerated.  Not Charlie Shrem nor Ross Ulbricht.

I'm torn on this one. He's being made an example of, which sucks for him. I do think it's a bit harsh, though, even for the 'poster child,' but they don't really care at this point. In a few years, he may get softened up on, depending what happens with other people involved. This entire situation just keeps getting crazier and crazier. The rabbit hole is deep as fuck

Wow. Those Sunni extremist nutjobs could do with a guy like you.  Growing something  = Jail time.  How very enlightened.

As for the hit for hire shit, don't you think that fact that the DEA guy involved has been arrested for stealing and trying to do a runner to Algeria might have taken some of the shine off that particular gem of US jurisprudence?  Even a little?   Hmmm??  ??? ???



Edit:  Sorry, replied before seeing duke1839 response,  substitute above with '^this  ;D"

What confuses me about Ross isn't whether he was sentenced to life or got off completely free. Ross strikes me as a pretty bright kid. He must have known that the Christian Puritan laws in this country would eventually catch up with him because he wasn't 12 years old and tried to hide his identity. He's not a martyr because he did try very hard to hide his real identity. Martyrs usually want everyone to know who they are and don't mind taking a bullet for the team. What confuses me is why this bright kid didn't leave America to run his illegal business? Why stay in the Christian Lions jaws waiting for the eventual bite? Makes no sense to me.

There could be a slight advantage to staying in the US as investigators could drastically narrow the search down to focusing on Americans who left recently or before the creation of the silk road.

The best solution would have been to make his nationality/race/identity ambiguous when speaking with employees and leave the US IMHO. It is difficult but can be done as Satoshi has shown.

It makes sense if he really was the fall guy that he claimed to be.  Andy Greenburg said that Ulbritch had a mole in the investigation.  No, DPR had a mole.  If DPR was tipped off that the Feds were closing in on him, it is plausible that Ulbricht is just the fall guy.  As far as I'm concerned, the only thing Ulbricht is guilty of is trying to remove a spam post from the Silk Road forums.  30 years for removing a spam post.

I suppose but I think I'd rather live free in Somalia than be a prisoner in America. It's not like he didn't have plenty of money to hire his own protection army.

That really would be sad, wouldn't it?

Since alota people keep defending Ross Ulbricht like he was some kinda hero:


When Nod (DEA agent Force) asked Ross what to do with (Curtis Green) who was supposed to have stolen 350000$, he first said:

(2013-01-26 11:17) myself: I'd like him beat up, then forced to send the
bitcoins he stole back. like sit him down at his computer and make him do
it


After one day of thinking, Ross changed his mind and stated following:

(2013-01-27 15:16) Nob: as we discussed, I reached out and I have two
very, professional individuals that are going to visit green
(2013-01-27 15:16) myself: will they execute him if I want?
(2013-01-27 15:17) Nob: they are very good; yes, but I directed them only
to beat him up; that was your wishes yesterday, correct?
(2013-01-27 15:19) myself: yes it was

and a few minutes later:

(2013-01-27 15:25) myself: ok, so can you change the order to execute
rather than torture?
Case 1:14-cr-00068-KBF Document 227-1 Filed 03/31/15 Page 49 of 121
20
(2013-01-27 15:26) myself: he was on the inside for a while, and now that
he's been arrested, I'm afraid he'll give up info
(2013-01-27 15:26) Nob: yes, is that what you want?
(2013-01-27 15:26) myself: and he ripped me off
(2013-01-27 15:26) myself: it is, after i had a chance to think on it
(2013-01-27 15:26) myself: never killed a man or had one killed before,
but it is the right move in this case.
(2013-01-27 15:27) myself: how much will it cost?

When you read that part in his own written journal it goes something like:

- Set up new server
- Site got DDosd
- Paid hitman to kill that thief
- Went to the park to clean it up

I have no remorse for this m....f.... low life computer nerd, wh orders killings like other people order pizza. I hope he rots in jail forever.

I think we just have to take the same approach the US Government took with taking essentially no action with the complicit drug laundering actions of HSBC and Wachovia - No charges nor jailtime due to the danger of a lack of faith/belief in our banking system which they say could have had a dire outcome (to their partners no doubt).

Similarly, the danger in putting Ross in jail for essentially creating a torrent like linking system for products, is going to cause me and millions of others to lose Faith in The US Legal system as well as the Government. All the while Cannabis is being legalized with other drugs to follow. Bad timing US.

Also, since the before mentioned banks' fines were less than there profits, and since 10,000 or so murders can be attributed to their actions, Ross should also get his BTC's back in addition to being free.

Finally let Ross and Snowden share the Nobel Peace prize for doing more than Obama ever has.

Its About Sharing!

No one was killed, while HSBC and Wochovia got away with the money and over 10,000 deaths. Get your priorities straight (and spread the love).  :)

Noone was killed just because he hired the "wrong" hitman.

Your pissing in the wind man. Those two corrupt cops got that case thrown out, and perhaps Ross free'd.
And Agent Force was ready for some serious killing with all them guns at the time of his arrest.
Again, get your priorities straight, Ross was helping the planet as a whole by doing his part to end the war on people, I mean consciousness, I mean drugs.  ;)

All the evidence you quoted above was generated and supplied by a (now alleged to be a thief and a liar) Law Enforcement Agent.

Do you not think that there may be even a tiny question as to its value as evidence?

Nobody was talking about killing anyone until the DEA arrived on the scene. remember, officers found 650 rounds of ammo and 4 handguns in his home (the DEA guy, not Ross!!)when he was arrested.
As for the theft that sparked off the alleged 'hit' talk - It looks like that was stolen by our friendly inside DEA guy.

Dude, you couldn't make this shit up.

Edit:  Damn! I really need to learn to either think or type quicker...  :o :o

The journal and the chat logs were not "generated and supplied" by the two officers and the decision to "kill" instead of "beating up" was Ross' very own idea. Just having the opportunity to pay a hitman was enough for him to actually do this. Not a hero at all to me...

Awesome. Just Pure F-ckin awesome...

The murder for hire charges are still on in Baltimore, the prosecutor said that they are looking into what they are going to do, but they certainly haven't been dropped as of yet (if ever)

After reading the newly released docs, It was Russ decision to kill Curtis green, but was convinced to do so by cimon, dprs confidant.  At first, DPR just wanted the money returned and then beat CG up if he didn't comply. then cimon (think thats his name)told him be better do so, with the egging on of inigo (mr. jones) Green is lucky that DPR turned to NOB for the hit, Cimon (variety jones) really wanted to do it. he also wanted to follow nob to make sure the hit was taken out. Green is VERY lucky.. what strikes me funny is that when dpr said "give your guys this note to him (with the btc address and instuctions) Carl really didnt want to do that, he said his gus didnt know anything about computers, well, Carl or nob is the one that had the stolen bitcoins, so he didnt want to give them up..

This whole story is so damned intriguing...

I personally believe the Russ should still face the murder for hire, but with all the evidence. now if NOB told him to have him killed, or whatever, then it would be different..

The worst part is the defense couldn't use some of the evidence they had about the two corrupt agents. The government used the grand jury investigation of force to deprive the jury from receiving facts about the corrupt nature of the Government’s investigation, which deprived Ross of a fair trial.

Interesting aspect. Fitting very much into my Variety Jones topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=935434.0
I find this character the most interesting in this SR story.

The guy was so lame it hurts, there's all kinds of anonymous ways of doing that and he used Bitstamp for selling the coins?!

He was asking for getting caught!

He is no computer expert. That was Shaun Bridges' part. Remember when Force (Nob) asked DPR what a "support" is?

Naw, cops go to "cop jail" where the inmates won't k.o.s. a cop.

No they don't they go to usual jail/prison but they usually go in with the snitch type of and get separated from the main for their own protection they also get sent to other states to limit the amount that may remember them from previous busts. Would be the worst feeling ever going to prison after putting so many in their over your life time. No doubt the guys if given maximum sentence will end it before they get going in there to long.

We thought Mark Karpeles was the biggest asshole ever, but I guess we forgot about the US DEA. The irony of them being caught money laundering due to the diligence of a Bitcoin exchange is just incredible.

Wow.  So DEA guy steals the coin under greens name, tells Ross it was green, and then starts a conversation about dealing with green..

Most jurisdictions in the world would throw that out in the trash where it belongs, and conduct a sworn inquiry to establish who in the DEA allowed this to happen.

The conversations involving the 'hit' were between the defendant and the DEA guy. The DEA were involved in the generation of that conversation, like you and me are generating this exchange right now. This wasn't a random conversation recovered from a server, this was engineered by the DEA.


You said it buddy!!  The opportunity ( provided by the DEA) was the main driving force behind these conversations. Even the theft that precipitated it in the first place was perpetrated by the DEA.

The whole thing stinks, and while I dont argue the innocence or otherwise of Ulbricht, the DEA have exposed themselves to be no better than their enemies in this so called War on Drugs. The fact that they did not recognize the seriousness of the position that SA Force had put them in, but continued to prosecute the case by "insulating" the NY based case shows a disregard and contempt for the Law that is almost beyond comprehension.

I agree completely, that the agents are not much better than Ross/DPR. All of them deserve the sentences they'll get. My posting was directed to the guys, that call Ross U. a "Hero", which he definitely isn't.

STF we dont kniw if this shit was made up by the DEA and the corrupt guy. 

There was no proof provided by the defense, that the files have been planted on Ross Ulbrichts computer.

Well his journal or log appears to be a simple text file. No handwriting. So you have agents with access to a plain text log that can be modified to fit any agenda or story. Surely, logically... as soon as there is any doubt as to the integrity of the agents (which I guess you have to assume initially for law & order purposes), the entire journal/log is no longer admissible. But this is not the half of it... as in this case the agents have an obvious monetary gain for a large sum of money, and the document cannot be trusted at all as people will go to great lengths for monetary gain, and able to employ the help of others due to the promise of monetary gain.

I think this is a big let down for the enforcement agencies... these agents have really smeared them. I can't see how there wouldn't be a retrial very soon.

I had no idea the journal was not handwitten!!!
Two corrupt agents and a text file "from" Ross = reasonable doubt plus, you said it.
No wonder the government fought tooth and nail to keep all of this out of the trial.
Just keeps getting better and better.

And now the ties to Mt. Gox going under (possibly from government having frozen accounts and some cold wallets) is making more and more sense.

Its about sharing (the evidence  ;D)

Like I said, I believe that Ross should get a retrial, but I dont think that it will change things much. The conversations in DPR's log show that Nob (Carl Force, the corrupt DEA agent) didn't ask to have the murder take place, i initially thought that he said things like " come on, you have to kill him, its the only thing to do" well, there is no proof that happened. In fact, it looks like NOB was going to do anything that DPR wanted. Trust me, im not defending Carl at all, he should burn in hell for what he did, but he did steal the coins to put the whole thing in motion, so thats where his best defense is.

What I think is ironic, the guys in Baltimore are stating that The secret service agent stole the coins, i believe they are saying that so that it wont taint their case against Ross murder for hire charge, but you cant tell me that Ross and shaun werent in on it together, Since Shaun was the computer guy, it makes sense he was the one that did all the bitcoin transfers, so he did all the leg work, but i bet you a bitcoin that Carl got a big piece of those stolen coins. Hell, i read some communication between Ross and Shaun asking how to launder the bitcoins...

The prosecution in Baltimore is grasping at straws to keep the charges going, but while I think hes still mostly culpable for the murder for hire, i dont see him totally guilty, so if there is a trial, i bet hes found innocent. Also, who knows when Carl and the other guy went bad, they are stating that everything was fine until they stole the money..lol, i dont buy that they were angels up until that point, there just isnt tons of proof yet... I wonder how much "nob" sold on SR and didn't report it..

But is the journal in Ross' handwriting or just a file? If it is anything but in his handwriting, given the circumstances, I can't imagine things sticking.

The journal seems to be like an early block that the case is largely built on. If you invalidate an early block, everything that follows is invalidated, so to speak (blockchain tech).

I do not believe a judge would permit questioning along these lines. The defense does not have a shred of evidence that any files were tampered, and they have no witness will testify that things were.

Is reasonable doubt not enough considering two corrupt cops role in all this? I can't imagine the burden of proof is soley on the defense here. I mean they aren't allowed to speak on so many topics as it is.

I am sure things will get interesting regardless, I mean we also have questions, very valid ones, asking if the government has Gox coins (paper wallets).

I get the feeling that one bad break for the government and this case is done for them. IMO that is why the judge has been unreasoble thus far, overly strict to put things lightly. It is like Ross vs. Prosecution AND Judge.

Since when it is the duty of the defence to prove they were tampered with? Surely it is up to the prosecution to prove they were NOT tampered with. A tall order considering:

1. SA Force had access to green's account ( and depending on policy probably had sudo access which can be used to alter any system file or property
2. SA Force was a Law officer, now currently under indictment for theft and passing information to criminals.

Seems to me that 2 crocked DEA agents were at the steering wheel for large periods of time while these crimes were being perpetrated. They should have offered Ross a plea, secured a conviction on lesser charges and then concentrated on nailing these agents.  Seems they did it the other way round.

If the government is the proponent of the evidence, and they elicit testimony demonstrating that they found these files on Ulbricht's machines, and they were appropriately preserved, that would seem to me to be the end of the matter. The government has elicited no testimony and has no evidence that anyone but Ulbricht wrote those files, and indeed it appears to contain information about SR that only DPR (and not the government) would know.

So if the defense wants to bring up that somehow, they believe these agents tampered with the files, they need to have witnesses who will testify to the fact that these files were tampered with. They do not have these witnesses, because they don't exist. The notion that the DEA and USSS agents tampered with the files appears to me at least, to me entirely speculative. Yes, these agents did bad things, and yes they had access to a Silk Road forum admin account (though not the server-side account, and not Ulbricht's laptop, and I don't believe there was any evidence that the admin on the SR forums had any kind of server access), but there does not seem to me to be any evidence at all that anyone tampered with these files. Whom would the defense call who would testiyf to anything like that?


My understanding is that the DEA agent had the one admin account for only a few days.

The one thing that I think that will come of it, is that this will help Greens case... I believe Carl was the arresting officer, etc.. so I think he may be in pretty good shape.. They cant say that the baltimore office had nothing to do with him,  like they are with Ross' case.

Edit, just read blackbirds last comment.. from what I remember reading. Carl had the log in credentials for over a week, (cant remember the exact dates, but it seems like it was like a week or two.)

I just looked, it was Jan. 19-26 that he had the login credentials. As I said before though, they were just for an admin account on the website. It is not my understanding that an admin on the website had any server access. And obviously the server was a separate machine from Ulbricht's personal laptop.

YEa, im sure that DPR and maybe a programmer if one was working for him, were the only ones with server access. I dont see a need to give anyone server access unless that was their job...but who knows... My guess is that DPR was the only one that could access the server..

Indeed. And our discussion of this shows how specious it would be for the judge to permit the defense to bring up this "tampering" argument without any evidence. Yes, it appears that this DEA Agent had access to the forum account, but it doesn't appear that he even could have tampered with the evidence that the New York team had collected. And even if he could, as I said above, no one is going to testify that he did. It sounds to me like a pretty straight-forward application of Federal Rule of Evidence 403: the unfair prejudice substantially outweighs its probative value.

Once you have an appropriate admin access to a system, it is very easy to ensure you can have continued access. I still have (unseen) access to servers that I worked on 8 years ago. Not due to any maliciousness on my part, but simple laziness and lack of skills of the admins at the time.

Also, I think I was conflating access to servers for running SR and its forums with access to Ross' personal computer.

I don't deny anything you say. Ultimately the issues comes down to: who is going to say what in court. What could Ulbricht do? Bring in a sysadmin as an expert to talk generally about server access? I can understand a judge being very leery of opening the door on all this stuff for such unsubstantiated speculation.

Gov filed its response brief to the motion for a new trial. It's 150 pages, but maybe I can take a look over the weekend. I'm sure it'll be an interesting read.

Depends. web admins would normally have access to the sites file system, from the SERVER_ROOT upwards. Without knowing the arch of the site i cant tell if this included forums, dbs, etc, but it usually would. Unless they were running a CMS, where they had CMS admin access only. I find that a bit unlikely from reading how they ran things.

What they would not have had access to would be the server administration ( root ) But their admin accounts would have given them quasi root access

It certainly would!!  Listen, thanks again for the time you put into explaining this from a ( evidently well trained) legal perspective. With so much uninformed opinion out there, itd important to keep things grounded in facts, and not emotions.  8)

Thank you kindly! Happy to provide what commentary I can. I'm no techie who can comment on all the ins and outs of bitcoin development, so I'm happy to contribute how I can to the community!

Incidentally, this artechnica article sums it all up pretty well from the legal perspective: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/op-ed-prosecution-of-corrupt-silk-road-feds-wont-help-ross-ulbricht/

Except that its written by a CS geek, not a beak.   ;D

....with Justin Timberlake as Ross Ulbricht.

True that's why I'm still here, it's fucking hilarious.
But I'm glad that even some out of the press now realize this.

It's a joke, is what it is. An insult to the very concept of justice. DPR is still a bad person, but a fair judicial system would give him a retrial. Look at all of this evidence that wasn't presented.

Is it somehow possible for Dratel to proof that the relevant files (journal, chat logs etc) from Ross Ulbrichts computer were planted/altered?

Is there a way for the defense to obtain Ross' harddisks and let professial forensics check logfiles on his computer for troians, viruses, connections, hacking attempts (exploits, RDP, VNC etc)? I don't think that the FBI was searching for these. Would be counterproductive with their case against Ross.

Goes to show that the government is not clear of crooks itself.

It has been argued for years how the war on drugs has been a direct attack on people, in particular those from lower socio economic backgrounds. And now, 100's of 1000's of people might be saying goodbye to prisons as Cannabis laws are changed, and other laws to follow.

I find it interesting that in your words "DPR is still a bad person" when his history is anything but and he was trying to do his part to end the war on drugs. Or are you judging him on the charges that have been dropped, except for one local? Regardless, those are charges. It seems like people care more about laws, than actual morals or compassion regarding issues. If that continues to be true, the future does not look bright. I see people arguing for laws and ignoring their hearts. That, in part, is how we have been manipulated to where we currently are.

Think with your minds all you want, but don't forget your hearts as well. It is what, in part, makes us human BEINGS.

You could probably argue Mexican Drug Cartels are doing their bit to end the war on drugs too. I wouldn't have an issue with DPR if he was true to his word and set up Silk Road as a revolutionary and libertarian idea, but to me it seems very likely he ordered hits on people and then tried to blame it on Mark Karpales which I'm very skeptical he had anything to do with it. People seem to be ignoring many of his unscrupulous acts which invalidate everything else he's done imo.

No, you probably couldn't. Criminal drug cartels are a direct consequence of the war on drugs. Up to the 1980's, many drugs from Columbia and Ecuador were collected though ad-hoc farmers co-ops, run at local levels.  The war on drugs increased the money flowing through this system to make it attractive to criminals, and then phychotic criminals. Without a 'war', the drug market is no different from other legal drugs, such as alcohol or tobacco. Look at prohibition in the US as an example of how criminality involves itself in trade that becomes proscibed.


SR was set up as a business, an exchange to facilitate buyers who wanted product and sellers who wished to sell. Thats as revolutionary as it gets. In most cases, there is nothing wrong with that, where it doesnt get out of hand. illegal, yes, but a threat to society, no.
The alleged talk of 'hits' only seems to have become an issue once some physco DEA guys got involved on the scene. They seem to have initiated (through the theft) and fuelled this aspect of the case. That is why it is now "dead in the water", to quote the article. Nice.

Unscrupulous being "not honest or fair"? I would say that pretty much summarises the DEA's role in this case.

Actually, in retrospect, that is not in fact a good article. Its an Op-Ed, so its merely an opinion of someone who has no legal experience, on what is purely a legal matter.
Secondly, the author makes no effort to hide his partisan view. the following is not typical of a 'balanced' outlook:


This is a reprehensible statement to make in the context of a legal case. One of the primary tenets of Justice is that everyone gets a fair trial, and its the duty of ones council to provide this, irrespective of their guilt or innocence.

The authors use of such language in the piece identifies him as no better than the tinhats who blindly cry foul without taking time to examine the facts. He's a looney, just from the other side.

Also, his analysis is hardly insightful - several of his points are either direct quotes or paraphrases of the prosecution case unsealed during the week. We still need a legal opinion on this.

Before this gets out of hand with heartless logic, don't forget your roots.

http://libertycrier.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/First-responsiblity-to-question-authority.jpg

Then surely Silk Road is also a direct consequence of the war on drugs? When you try prohibit anything it will always create a black market. I think the true libertarian revolutionaries with regards to the drug or free market will be the people creating the decentralized exchanges. It will be interesting to see how Law Enforcement tries tackling them with no central authority to go after.


I think you should apply this wider... question everything.

DPR was not good. Look at what has been proven about him:

1. He can be easily manipulated by government agents
2. He can be manipulated into ordering violence

That's a combination of things that could get an innocent Bitcoiner hurt. Did the person he was driven to want assassinated actually steal anything?

No argument from me on that point, very probably. Human being are fundamentally rational, and react to irrational behavior in novel, rational ways.

For me, I want my government to pick dog crap off the streets, keep the lights on, fill in holes on the highway. Thats what its for. When government starts thinking its a new religon, dictating its idea of whats moral and whats not and enforcing it, then we run into problems.  For many centuries, Common Law  did a fine job of ensuring society ran well. But now its replaced with written laws, that become more complex and partisan with every generation.

Im not saying its all bad, but we seem to have lost our sense of balance. Everything is now polarized. Fundamentalist thought seems to rule the day. Society seems to have been dumbed down to the point where they can only understand concepts in terms of black or white. On or off. All the work of the great philosophers of ancient times sem to have ebeen forgotten.

 I think its time for the "middle majority" to start being more vocal. But of course, they probably won't.  :'(

Are you just trolling? If yes, then, Bravo! I like your sarcasm.   ;D ;D ;D

I presume that defense received all these things in discovery, either in the form of forensic copies of the hard drives, and/or permission to inspect the originals.

What do you think is the error in his legal opinion regarding the likelihood that these disclosures about the agents would grant a retrial? As I said, I believe that view to be correct.

His legal opinion? He's a techy. I value his legal opinion as much as I would value his medical opinion on a growth on my ass.

Also, for reasons I cited above, I believe him to be partisan.

Edit:  Look, short story - all this is based on a document released by the prosecution. To that end, it is likely to contain only information favourable to the prosecution. That is, not the full facts of the case, and the role of the DEA within it. Only an independent, sworn judicial inquiry into the conduct of the DEA and its officers will get to the truth of what went on during that investigation. Until that concludes, I firmly believe Ross' conviction to be unsound.

Your just attacking his credentials though, not his substance.


Well, that's not true. The government has an obligation to disclose information that is exculpatory, that is, information that tends to negate one of the elements of the crime. We have to presume that the government has done so because the defense has failed in its attempts to get more information that it alleges is exculpatory.

After a conviction, no defendant gets the benefit of an "independent, sworn judicial inquiry." We don't have anything like that in the United States. Judges do not make inquiries, though they can appoint special prosecutors. But that happens ... never. In fact, Congress abolished the position of "Independent Counsel" and replaced with the Office of Special Counsel at the DOJ in 1999. This was all after the Lewinsky matter which we all remember so well.

There will be an "inquiry" in that there appears to be an active prosecution against this agents. But the inquiry will not be judicial, and it will done by the DOJ. It will be "sworn" in the sense that there was sworn testimony before the Grand Jury, but unless the case goes to trial, there will be no public, "sworn" statements (excepting of course the sworn plea colloquy).

Damn right!!  The opinion of someone with no training in the field is worthless. The substance of an opinion follows from the credentials of those forming it. Im not going to turn up in court for a medical negligence claim with my mechanic describing my injuries.



Its better to presume that the government will tell you what it can get away with for now.




Well, thats a constitutional issue for Americans to face up to. Over here, the memory of Alfred Denning and his "appalling vista" are still fresh enough to give citizens a healthy disrespect for the so called "infallibility" of the law.


By quoting the word 'inquiry', you accept yourself that it will be of no value. Again, that does nothing to address the issue at hand. The authorities have made a monumental mess of this, but nobody will ever be brought to account. The fact that someone is in jail when there may be a solid case for his release/retrial is just grist to the mill. There is no point in pursuing foregn policies abroad, purporting to support democracy and freedom, when this is going on at home.  ;D

It sounds like most of your arguments are really political ones that take issue with how the U.S. legal system is structured. I'm not really going to engage in those, since I'm just trying to respond and provide some commentary on what I view the legal issues to be.

I will note that you say "nobody will ever be brought to account." The two agents are indicted. They are facing consequences for their actions, and they will presumably continue to face consequences as their legal proceedings ramp up.

No politics at all. Where did I mention politics? ** There are shortcomings ( as I view them, and im sure some constitutionalists in the US may agree) in the legal process brought to light by such a case. I think these need to be looked at. But I'm not subject to American law, and am not trained in the law, so its moot.


If you think that the DEA's involvement begins and ends with these two, then I feel you may be looking at it in too superficial a level. Without a full inquiry ( which will not happen) you will never be able to say for sure whether justice was done or not.

" justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done"


** Ok US foreign policy might be just the teeniest bit political, so consider the remark cheerfully withdrawn!  ;D

I mean politics in the sense that you are critiquing the entire criminal justice process as a whole, rather than merely this individual prosecution.


I suspect it was limited to these two agents. It's hard to keep a criminal conspiracy quiet among so many people, and frankly, it's monumentally stupid for these guys to be throwing away extremely lucrative and valuable careers over this.

I do and encourage it in general. But this was just a quote from Benjamin, baby steps...

I think you may have turned that on its head....  Im speaking of limitations as they apply to this individual prosecution, and the chances of redressing any damage caused


I respect your suspicions, but I do not share your faith in stupidity....  ;D ;D

This is a really good debate. Valid arguments from both sides. The prosecution is going to say that nothing happened except that they stole money. There is probably no evidence that they did nothing else, Ive read EVERYTHING that has been unsealed and while I think that they were dirty, (at least the dea agent was) before all of this, there is no proof. and the logs what DPR shows that he wanted a murder to take place, the Dea agent just did Dprs bidding. But on the flip side, its been stated that Carl had multiple personas. They got that info from his undercover computer, whos to say that he didnt use another computer and used many more aliases and there is much more that we dont know.. this is what I think need to be looked at, maybe it is.

On a side note, i think Ross would be in a much better situation if he would have claimed ownership of those servers. His attorney could have got all the evidence thrown out. Im no lawyer, i cant think of why he would admit that Ross started SR and not claim the servers, makes no sense to me at all.

I think that the agents were just greedy. it was in their best interest that dpr not be arrested. Carl could have kept making money and neither one of them would have been caught. So, I think that puts to bed that they set DPR up, why would you want to kill the golden goose?

These DEA agents aren't even good to themselves, haha ;D ;D always "catching" crime. They are the ones who make crime!

A sad example that shows that power corrupts.

You are not getting it. If the society is crime-free, then these DEA guys will lose their jobs. So it is natural to expect them to create crime scenes, once the crime graph starts to go down.  ;D

I think this is a ridiculous proposition and complete conspiracy theory. The gov don't have to worry about crime rates dropping to the point of 'creating' more crime otherwise the feds/police becoming redundant and unnecessary. There's plenty of crime committed without having to create more to remain employed and relevant not to mention the ridiculous laws that create it in the first place (drug prohibition for example).

You are not getting it. The private prison industry in the United States is a multi-billion dollar business. Reduce the number of convicts, and thousands will lose their jobs. And police departments get more funding, when the crime rates spiral out of control. Everything is interconnected.

A+ for knowledge or information gathering. Most people don't realize that the American prison system is a private for profit industry. The ACLU has fought against the inequities of the privatized prison system for a long time.

No, I get the privatized prison system, but what I'm not buying is your conspiracy theory that they're creating crime scenes merely to fill prisons when crime rate drops. That's just something you made up. There will never be a shortage of poor people they can lock up for minor crimes.

Most of the poor people are inside the jail for fake charges, such as cannabis possession. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are inside the jails for such fake charges. So tell me why these people are being arrested.

It's not a conspiracy theory when it's common knowledge that cops constantly do "sting operations" where they orchestrate the whole thing.

Remember that more than 1% of the American adult population is currently incarcerated. This 1% is not a small amount. In many of the senate / house elections, the victory margin is much lower than 1%.

I think what he is trying to say is that what constitutes a criminal offence can be dictated by the state. Trivial offences can be criminalised, this attracting jailtime. So, in a society where there is a gradual decrease in serious crimes against the person or property, the existing framework of Law Enforcement can be kept productive. The last thing a state wants is a well trained and equipped force returned to civilian life.

"creating crime scenes"  - look at he Silk Road case. If you take the DEA out of this case, how serious is it? A website for guys selling a bit of weed and head stuff? Guys been doing that in Europe out of the Netherlands for years. Enter the DEA - and now you have have "nob" (DEA thief) trying to move 1 KILO of coke ( even the SR regulars reckoned this was suspicious and probably LE), funds being STOLEN (by DEA guy), innocent staff being framed by DEA for theft, hitmen being offered (by DEA) -etc.  Things seemed to go to sh*t once the DEA was involved.

Have a look the evidence. All the really bad stuff had the DEA involved everytime.

"creating crime scenes" ??  Maybe not such a far fetched idea after all.  8)

Think about what would happen if the war on drugs ended.. They would have to close down 95 percent of the prisons. They would have to lay off tens of thousands of DEA and other Federal agents. Its too big of a money maker for the government. But maybe they will just start their own silk road and start another revenue stream, lol...

This is why we will never see the end of the war on drugs. I wonder how many people would be out of work? it would start from federal agents, down to all the subcontractors, so im sure the number is huge. But, they can then switch their attention to drug prevention, and rehab. I believe the stats of portugal prove that decriminalizing drugs works, but they dont want us to know. They dont have to make illegal drugs legal, just decriminalize them. its a multibillion dollar a year business for the government. So of course they are against it. Who wants to get rid of their own  job, lol!...

Ill have to look up the exact numbers on how much the government spends on this war on drugs, im sure the numbers will be impressive..

That's is not a stupid idea!

One of the other bonuses that the state gets from these 'wars' is the resultant fear in the populace as a whole. Going all the way back to Machiavelli, who coined the phrase "Its better for a state [prince] to be feared than to be loved", you can control a population easily through fear (they don't have to be afraid of you per se, you just need to engender that fear in a general way) A great way to maintian this fear is to point to crime statistics, and create new targets, like "The War On Terror"  (double points for that!! )

By keeping people in a constant, senseless state of fear, civil liberties can be eroded and the power of the state extended into areas of life where it has no right.

Great example! where did you get that from?

Another example is Portugal. While they haven't decriminalised the drugs, they have decriminalised the users (who are in many ways victims). This change of approach has had some huge improvements for them:  Der Spiegel - Portugal after 12 years...  (http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/evaluating-drug-decriminalization-in-portugal-12-years-later-a-891060.html)

This is exactly what I was referring to. Many thanks for your post. It is well known that a large part of the petty crimes are framed by the cops themselves. The big question is why they are doing it. IMO, they are doing it for their own benefit.

They call it "civil asset forfeiture".

And if anyone questions that assertion, you simply respond - "Civil Asset Forfeiture",  a $2.7bn bussiness   ;D

(Assets forfeited are used by the agencies that collect it, split amicably with the feds)

Edit: @Bagatell   ;D ;D great minds, eh?

you guys seems to fail to see that Mark kapeles is DPR cause he ran and gave the bitcoins to the government.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_A6UVqeBGI&feature=youtu.be

The only evidence I've seen that Karpales is DPR is after the real DPR tried rather pathetically shifting the blame on to him.

Yeah I guess Mark had no reason to hand over the MTGOX bitcoins to the government, did you already forgot about the corruption?  

I dont see him in prison and bet you if Ross was in Japan they would have still put the blame on him.

Mark Karpeles is the guy who single-handedly destroyed the reputation of Bitcoin. The negativity which Bitcoin received after the Mt Gox scandal is going to stay for many years to come. Also, Karpeles destroyed the life savings of tens of thousands of people, some of who were among the earliest adapters of Bitcoin.

So in short, Karpeles is the no.1 enemy of Bitcoin, which makes him a friend of the bankers and oligarchs.

Ive been trying to educate people on bitcoin since I knew about bitcoin. I explained to my uncle, who is an attorney, and when we talked 6 months or so ago, the only thing he can remember about bitcoin is the mtgox scam. So, it totally turned him off to bitcoin. Im sure it turned millions off as well. Those that  understand it, are used to the scams, unfortunately. but bitcoin is going to be hard to go mainstream with so much bad publicity. plus the mt gox deal wasnt small, hundreds of millions are missing...I feel bad for those that lost money on mtgox, but I saw the writing on the wall way before they went under and was lucky to get all my coins off it. I dont understand why so many people didnt see the signs?

A total of BTC850,000 and tens of millions of USD in cash was stolen from Mt Gox. But I disagree with you about the warning signals. There were no warnings of any type. Else, most of the users could have withdrawn their coins.

Both of you are right, but if you had paid attention to what Mark did, Im sure the coins went to the government.
Mark is Def favorite for the GOV.  Let them rejoice cause now is our jobs to teach btc to the future generations, forget most of the old timers.  Is the new gen we have to push btc too.  They are going to be the programmers and developers of the future.  They hold the power to rid of gov corruption

your assumption implies that the US gov was willing to be corrupted, accepting coins not beloging to Karpeles, for not imprisonating him for being DPR?
fascinating

\

Think of it as a bail out for Mark K

Many people were aware of (mainly fiat) withdrawal issues, but I think few suspected things were as bad as they were. Probably a lot could have been saved had Gox been frank about it earlier.

My sign was that withdrawals had stopped, this was about 5 months before they closed, i think or a little shorter. but I couldn't withdraw anything from there, then one day boom, it worked, got every satoshi out of there, plus the govt had seized funds from dwolla and their bank, granted it was because of bad agents, but we didnt know that at the time. To me it was a no brainer. I think ive read some posts here from mt.gox members that basically said the same thing.

But, i think most of the people that lost their coin didnt pay attention to the market like some of us. when I mined, I thought and studied bitcoin all day long. Those that just had a few bucks to invest, just put their faith into mt.gox and missed the signs. its not their fault at all, im just saying.. The ones I dont feel too my sympathy for are those that had the same feelings as myself but did nothing about it. well, i still feel bad, but not as bad as those that didnt have the time to keep track of bitcoin on a daily basis.

i think, like with the bad agents, we will eventually find out what happened. Now we have another possibility in the mix.

You were just lucky. See... Mt Gox had such a good reputation around here, at least until the end of 2013. Sometimes people get blinded by a feeling of trust, that they ignore the risks.

 :o  it looks that that temptations are hard even for agents.

Did these agents give any declaration in the case?
And that declaration are still valid even after what happened?
I don't know if they would be trustable people

My thought on all this yes silk road was a dark market but im pretty sure this agents made users do even worst stuff from what their normal operations where at some point.
even in real life, you could see how corrupt the justice system is along with the law enforcer they do it all for a # base or to gain better poll ratings.

No.


It is highly unlikely that the government would ever attempt to introduce the fruits of their evidence or their testimony ever. Frankly, I don't see how it would be possible even, without an immunity order, because the agents would take the Fifth.

Cops and federal agents have been framing fake charges from time immemorial. The same has happened in the case of Silk Road as well.

There was another case recently (think I saw it on reddit) where undercover feds set up a honeypot selling arms on a dark market. The buyer ended up going getting arrested (though there was no talk of entrapment).

Framing, entrapment and corruption seem to be the hallmarks of modern day federal agents.

Who's watching the watchmen?  ;)

The journal and the chat logs were not "generated and supplied" by the two officers and the decision to "kill" instead of "beating up" was Ross' very own idea. Just having the opportunity to pay a hitman was enough for him to actually do this. Not a hero at all to me...

Next time you quote my posts instead of simply stealing them, please ...

lol that's the second time today I've seen members copy pasting previous comments, really hope this isn't the start of a new trend of shitposting! sig campaigners already get enough flak without spammers duplicating other people's posts.

Happens from time to time but someone usually spots them soon enough. Who was the other person doing it?

This sort of activity brings bad name for the honest posters. Banning will do no good. These people will soon buy another account and continue their activity.


Are you referring to this incident?

http://www.coindesk.com/federal-agents-arrest-boston-bitcoin-gun-buyer-in-sting-operation/

People who are residing in the United States needs to be extra vigilant when they use dark markets. Either be careful, or avoid using them. If you are careless and still want to buy guns / ammo, then get a Dominican citizenship and get the hell out of USA.

That's different though. He was a felon trying to buy a firearm. It's easy to buy guns in the U.S. if you're not an ex-con. This country has no shortage of guns for sale. There are many times more guns in this country than there are people. Couldn't he just find a dirty pawn shop operator and pay 3x what the guns worth or buy one off the street in the ghetto like every other felon? The penalty isn't any worse and there's less chance of getting caught. What an imbecile. lol

Another lost soul who believed that complex technology could overcome basic stupidity.

This case is like made for TV movie.

Could the Crimes of Two Corrupt Agents Free Ross Ulbricht?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2015/04/17/could-the-crimes-of-two-corrupt-agents-free-ross-ulbricht/ (http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2015/04/17/could-the-crimes-of-two-corrupt-agents-free-ross-ulbricht/)

I think I made that point earlier on in this thread, but legal opinion seemed to discount it. How bizarre.

And I am sure that this show will never be allowed to be aired in the Cable TV. Even if they allow it, it will be the heavily-censored version. May be they should upload it to YouTube or some other video-sharing site.

While the US government restricts a lot of freedoms I find it doubtful this would ever be censored by cable TV.

Not to discount what any legal experts here said, but it all comes down to subjective interpretation to a point. Yeah, the laws might be quite "objective" but how the judge, prosecution and defense interpret them are quite otherwise. I brought up a bit of the same as you and the legal experts discounted it.

Regardless, it is nice to see legal experts who see things the way most on this thread have as well.

Haha. It really is. They're actually making a film about Silk Road which the screenplay is being written now by Dennis Lehane (Shutter Island / The Drop). I wonder if they'll include this latest revelation. I've always thought it would make great story for a film but wondered how they could make it work seeing as it will be mostly based on 'online activity'.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3271820/?ref_=nm_dev_5

I really hope they wait for the Ross outcome (re-trial hopefully and then he is off  ;) )
These types of movies can have a significant affect on people (which is but 1 reason with the government is going to all measures to make sure Ross is not let off the hook. They want to make a HUGE example of him of course.)

Fuck the US GoV I lost all hope in good no matter DEM or REPUB they are both corupt and faster people realize this and our army, is time to overthrow these fuck faces.  That now only put men and women in harms way but also do harm just to protect themselves.  From Snowden to Ross.  This shows how the Gov works against anything that is threat to them


Briing the P2P dark Markets, and I mean a shit load of them.  Lets see how many FBI, DEA can cover all of them, and keep making more and switching them and make new names.  fuck there Evidence lies, fuck you Obaba, I voted for you and now I see, that no matter your skin color, your the same piece of shit like the rest of them.  A PUPPET with Strings.

I think they need to wait for the final conclusion I really believe the hitman shit was made up just to build a case out of Ross.

Yes I saw the signs as well when I heard how long it took to withdraw and exchange, I already new they were doing things wrong.  I warned people, I should have came on here to warn, everyone to get your money off, but then it would came to, "Where is the Proof"  line.  So the people who lost, had to learn from it.  Remember, is a new kind of bike to ride and people need to learn.  but fuck mad this guy got rich in the expenses of others, would be really nice he was in prison.   Im sure he paid the gov off, like Lynn Ulbericht mentioned.

I'm sure the film will be in development for a while. It's still at script stage from what I understand. The saga definitely isn't over for sure, but I'm not sure Ross will get out of jail just because of this. Hopefully he does get a re-trial though especially with all this shenanigans that came to light and other evidence they weren't allowed to present for whatever reason.

Alex Winter being interviewed by Joe Rogan about his film Deep Web. Alex Winter was there at the trial. What a travesty. Just watch from the 1 hour mark for a few minutes. What a laugher (they joke about the journal but then go on about the case.) Also earlier in the video was interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJMjGLcdtOA&feature=share (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJMjGLcdtOA&feature=share)

Probably not the whole US Government, most are great people. But it only takes a couple.


https://www.google.com/search?q=grey%20state%20movie%20producer%20dead&oq=gre&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j69i59j0l2.2254j0j4&client=tablet-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&espv=1&ie=UTF-8

Preparing popcorn... I also hope they wait it out and see what more interesting stories come out of this trial. I don't see much light at the end of the tunnel for Ross, but corrupt cops will make for interesting plot twists.

Did anyone read this already?
http://ia801506.us.archive.org/27/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.232.8.pdf

Seems to be taken from Ross Ulbrichts PC: Agent Force giving information about ongoing investigations to DPR.

Edit: Not only that! It shows how Coinbase worked with the feds and a lot more interesting details about the SR case in general.

That was an interesting read. It shows how involved and lengthy the Silk Road investigation was. Bitcoin so far has been such a soap opera. I love it because it's better than any movie or show on cable because it's real. A couple of my friends and I are trying to figure out who will be the next big Bitcoin arrest.

Unsurprisingly, the motion for a new trial was denied.

Here we go boys and girls..... a hour of your day well fucking spent/



http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-1/




cannnnnnnot wait for part two

Part 2 will focus on the actual investigation and how they brought down Ross' talk about Tarbell, etc. These guys did their homework. From what I've heard, they are basing the movie off of this article.

The movie is going to be a must see, thats for sure...

I think Nick Bilton oversaw the second most if not the most important character in the whole Silk Road story: Variety Jones.

He was the "benevolent hacker":


and he appeared later as Cimon:


This is actually flipping reality:

The tor chat logs show, that Cimon/Variety Jones did introduce him to the idea of killing Curtis Green:


and later:


it was not Ross or Inigos idea, but it came from Variety Jones. Inigos comment was 8 minutes later:


So, if Mr. Bilton is reading this: You still have a chance to clear things up in part 2. If you need more insider information about the man behind DPR, check this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=935434.0.

by far the most intriguing part of this story so far... in my eyes is 'Variety Jones'


its pretty obviously not the jester as some suggested earlier.....


i dont think you go from hacking al queada supported websites, to encourgng btc for murder..... i just cant logically connect those dots.

Yeap,
Especially if his fellow inmates are people he busted in the past  :-*

Indeed,
I am still trying to wrap my head around it going through the SR tmeline.

I agree. Jester is not top of the list anymore.

I've always wondered if Roger Ver was some kind of federal agent. Because every time he gets any publicity, they mention he's a convicted felon or something, or that he renounced his American citizenship, as if it adds to his "street cred", like they're trying to endear him to radicals or something. I wouldn't be surprised if he was working with Carl Mark Force and Shaun Bridges from the start. Maybe he's the one who ratted them out.

I think if we find out who VJ is we would know for sure who DPR is and if that named changed hands. I think the Govt. knows who he is. The Govt can find anything out, the question is do they want to spend the resources. If money is no object, they could find anyone...

BTW, I've spoken to Roger many times, I can assure you, hes not an agent... I think his political views changed when he was arrested for selling large firecrackers on ebay. not sure if thats the true story, but have no reason to doubt him. spending one year in jail for that is ridiculous.

Also, Inigo did egg on DPR to kill Green. But the real culprit to convince him was VJ. But lets not forget, it was DPR's decision. At first, he didn't want Green even hurt, just wanted the money back. I guess he should have asked nob for the money back, lol...

VJ is Plural of Mongoose aka Thomas Clark. Should be easy for LE to find him for an interview.

Ive heard that POM wants to be known as VJ, im not sure that plural and VJ are the same person... could be, but who knows. if they do know who it is, he needs to be arrested, lol..

Fucking dirty pigs. Its them who should be in jail for years not dread rob

Im surprised that Inigo wasn't charged with conspiracy to commit murder. He egged DPR on to murder Green. He did strike some sort of deal in October, his sentencing is this October. Maybe they said we wont charge you with the murder rap. I think hes looking at a ten year mandatory minimum. He was only paid about 1k a week, worked for about a year, so he made about 50k. Sounds like DPR was a cheap bastard... He should have paid his main workers 10 to 20 grand a month for the risk they took, not like he couldnt afford it. he paid out hundreds of thousand for murders that never happened,lol...

Possible, that they're still investigating on him and the arrest is about to come. Also there is still a small chance, that VJ is a mole for LE and is already working on other darknet sites.

first heard this name on here late last night after the bar.. did some poking around.... hes already got legal cases in the works.... but seems hard to rationailze...to me..... that someone so already "on the radar" for lack of a better term.... could be so far from prevelant in the authorities eyes......thus far on a case like this.


not to just aimlessly shoot down theroys here....not trying to be that guy...but im genuinely interested in who tf this is.........

most logical answer however...............

I have distribution cases.... of a schedule 1.... and they dont typically hold out on bringing everything to light in a case.... granted this is a extreme circumstance and alot of other rules have already been broken etc etc........


but I feel like if it were that easy of an answer...there would have been some indication some shred of evidence that would have made there case that much stronger if they outed vj as one of there own..... but they dident


you know? thats where I get caught up in that mole shit........



shit VJ could be fuggin Snowden....



lulz




 

Heres Carls force financials for 2014. he received a tax refund of 150k, lol, i think hell be looking at tax fraud as well.. Looks like FOX paid him 20k and thats just to secure his rights, im sure he is owed much more...

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2070122-gov-uscourts-cand-286034-22-0.html

Silk Road: Undercover agent admits stealing Bitcoin:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33364349

Words from Mark yesterday:

http://www.magicaltux.net/post/124057497654/silk-road-timeline

And now today, police possibly charging Mark:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3f71p2/bitcoin_exchange_ceo_mark_karpeles_to_be_charged/

EDIT:

Where are the addresses?

If there was a theft, then Mark had the addresses, and so do Japanese police. The addresses will have to come out now.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/33k23y/where_are_the_mtgox_addresses/

It's about #@$ time that he face justice. Let's see if his conspiracy theories can hold up in a court. It's one thing to spew out a lot of nonsense to fabricate a story, it's another thing to prove it. He has all the odds stacked up against him, if you compare him to Ross's case.

He should have left the sleeping dogs, but he just had to poke it, and now they are showing him their teeth. They will come down on him like a ton of bricks now.

He had loads of time to prepare for his defense, so let's see if he can protect himself against the biting dogs. Bring the popcorn, this will be fun to watch. ^HeH^

"...This was what the team had been waiting for: a misconfiguration somewhere on the site that revealed the real IP address of Silk Road, which Tarbell proceeded to trace all the way to the state-of-the-art facility in Iceland.

Tarbell had been to the island nation once before and knew some of the officials at the meeting. There was an Icelandic prosecutor present—Tarbell was mildly distracted by how attractive she was, with her fitted skirt, secretary glasses, and hair in a bun—and an attaché from the US embassy. It’s a delicate thing, making requests of another government—a US attorney had written up an official letters rogatory petition, requesting that Iceland honor the bureau’s investigative requests—but the Icelandic authorities were accommodating, and the meeting was over in an hour. Not long thereafter, an Icelandic police detachment entered the immaculate foyer of the Thor Data Center."

Awesome article, thanks for helping me find it.  :)

It's about time they busted that fraud. It's not like we don't know that he single handedly brought the price of btc up to $1200 each. He's still a criminal and should be punished to the full extent of the law.