Jake Chevinsky has a great Twitter thread about how Ross Ulbricht's sentencing was deeply unjust. [1]
Basically, the judge sentenced him for a crime that he wasn't convicted of (murder-for-hire): 'When she [the judge] gave him double life plus 40 years, she said the "murders significantly justified the life sentence."'
The most heartbreaking part of the story is the letter Ross read to the judge before sentencing:
"If you find my conviction warrants a sentence that allows for my eventual release, I will not lose my love for humanity during my years of imprisonment, . . .
I will do what I can to make up for not being there for the people I love, and to make the world a better place.
Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made...
I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel ... a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker."
My understanding is that the murder-for-hire scheme was suggested by someone acting at the direction of law enforcement at the time. Furthermore, my understanding is that this person repeatedly pressured Ross before Ross gave in and ordered the hit. It sounds like the classic definition of entrapment. Law enforcement shouldn't be allowed to create a would-be-murderer and then prosecute them for essentially being easily manipulated.
I haven't followed the case, and I probably have some details wrong, but it sounds like the prosecution intentionally split the murder charge into a separate trial to be run later because the entrapment defense would have cast doubt on the other charges. (To be clear, my limited understanding leads me to think that Ross was probably guilty of the 4 charges under which he was convicted.) They likely probably never intended to prosecute the murder-for-trial charges except as a backup if they lost the primary trial. The entrapment defense just looks way too easy.
With enough determination and skill you can manipulate any person into anything. That's why I think his sentence doesn't serve justice but it is to send a message. Awful, awful chapter of the US justice history.
I've looked closely at the evidence and anyone who was familiar with it would conclude that he absolutely did intend to have people killed, and even believed he was doing it and had done it. And it wasn't just the federal agents entrapping him, there were 2 other agreements to kill 5 other people with another entity that was not a federal agent, but was scamming him out of money and the people did not exist.
But that's not what he was charged with and that's not what he was convicted of, so he shouldn't be serving time for it. If you want him on those charges charge him with those crimes.
Interesting. Were those 2 other agreements before or after the one suggested and pressured by the law enforcement asset? If those other agreements came later, there's an argument to be made that they were also an indirect result of the actions of the pressure by the law enforcement asset. I would guess there's no precedent for an indirect entrapment defense, but I'd consider it a mitigating circumstance for sentencing purposes.
In any case, I agree it seems fundamentally against the rule of law to punish people for crimes they haven't been convicted of.
Yes, they occurred after the contract with the federal agent.
However, the reason charges were dropped on those was because nobody was actually killed, the people he paid to have killed didn't actually exist, and the prosecutors determined that prosecuting him for crimes where no victims ever even existed would hurt their chances with a jury on the other charges.
The person blackmailing him and Curtis Green did exist, though. He also received a staged photo of the real Curtis Green, who appeared to be dead and covered in real blood. He definitely thought he killed at least some real people, even if no one died.
Yes, the contract that was arranged by a federal agent did have a real person involved.
The person blackmailing him was the person who he contracted to do the deed, and the name he had for the blackmailer was not a real person, 3 of the people never even were named in any way and did not exist either.
He did think he had killed a total (that we know of) of 6 people, which to me would be enough for soliciting murder if I were on a jury. But a defense would be very strong in a case like that, and a prosecutor unlikely to convince 12 jurors.
It's a long story, but basically there was a guy who would pump up vendor accounts and exit scam them, then he attempted to extort the site admin (DPR) with customer data using some story that he owed some real bad dudes a a lot of money, and when the admin tried to contact these real bad dudes about resolving it, he also asked them about selling on site and also taking care of this mutual problem. The real bad dudes agreed to handle the mutual problem for a fee, and DPR paid.
Of course, the scammer and the real bad dudes were the same guy, and he managed to turn an extortion into a murder for hire of himself and some fictional associates, and made off with just under a million dollars at the time, not counting what he made scamming customers and also not counting future price increase.
DPR, the criminal mastermind that he was, fell for it, never put it together, and paid. He legitimately thought all these names were different people and actually existed. I don't believe he even found out he got scammed until he was in jail facing charges and the scammer was caught for some other unrelated crimes.
I read a bit on various articles after commenting first time. I was very amused seeing he transferred thousands of BTC for one hit. For one hit it was roughly 1600 BTC at 60 USD. Bitcoin now stands over 20 000 USD so in todays BTC dollars that was a 32 million fake hit.
This is fair. I also 99.99% believe he intended to kill people and that he thought he had succeeded, but, yeah, it's odd that he was sentenced for something he wasn't charged with.
Personally, I'd prefer his sentence be fully commuted, and then prosecutors actually charge him with at least some of the murders-for-hire, a jury convicts him, and a judge re-sentences him to life in prison for those offenses.
That would be proper justice, I think. I think they could likely win the case despite the crooked cop (who was only involved in one of the five alleged attempted murders-for-hire). In my view, he shares the exact narcissistic and psychopathic mentality of any Escobar or Guzman: "if you come in my way, you forfeit your life".
It seems to me that, if a judge is able to choose a sentence among multiple possible sentences given a particular conviction, this by definition means that the information the judge uses to make that decision comes from things other than what the person was convicted of.
I disagree. Leeway in sentencing is to allow the court to better match the severity of punishment to the severity of crime when someone is convicted of crime which can cover a wide variety of behavior. Not to punish someone for crimes they weren't convicted of.
Severity of drug crimes tend to have to do with volume (Ross' was vast) and also things like whether weapons or violence was involved.
You don't have to be convicted of attempted murder for hire to have evidence that you were attempting to commit murder for hire in your drug case. The judge can surely use evidence presented in the case to decide severity.
> The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits increasing the maximum authorized sentence for an offense based on a fact not found by a jury.[1]
You're arguing the judge can essentially ignore the jury's findings on the case, which is the same as not having a jury.
And in this case, the prosecution didn't even bring an indictment for that particular crime. Allowing a judge to both decide which crimes were committed and who is guilty of committing them is not a great idea.
Please don't post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN. Perhaps you don't owe a particular person better, but you owe this community better if you're posting to it.
"X considering Y" is some of the most annoying "news" there is.
We all get to act like it's happening, and the news publication gets clicks for its unverified "wouldn't it be crazy if we actually had this scoop?" fantasy.
Yup it’s just clickbait. Same for the report from “people familiar with the matter” that trump was considering an Assange pardon. It works but it’s not reality, its certainly not news, it’s more like fan fiction.
As much as I think Ross's sentence is too severe, I wish he would pardon Snowden or Assange instead. You know, people that actually did good for the world and are being punished for it.
At the time I didn't really understand Snowden's motives and it wasn't really clear how right he was. At this point I feel like the writing has left the wall, has copied itself on every build board, every road side, and is probably being flown by an airplane as a banner in the sky. This interview with Glen Greenwald (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qEuKCS-czU) was what really opened to my eyes to what he was trying to say back then. It sucks I didn't listen.
In your unedited comment, it just wasn't clear if you ended up thinking he was right or wrong. But I suppose you wouldn't have structured your comment like that if you eventually disagreed with him.
In a nation with more prisoners than any other, on earth, in history, presidents (and governors too) certainly should do thousands of pardons at a time.
Because Snowden is a patriot, while Assange is a Russian asset who convinced people to ignore a woman’s story of sexual assault. If pardoned, Snowden would go back to the US and be a productive member of society, while Assange would go back to publishing whatever information his Russian handlers give him.
This comes up every time secret information is dropped and applies equally when it's more covertly released.
The obvious reason is they get to choose what information, when, and how its disclosed. For example, hack both sides, release one at a damaging time and blackmail the other into compliance.
Indiscriminate releasing of information can put people in immediate danger (like embedded spies).
You can also drop misinformation into a dump of legitimate information. Or a similar technique where you exaggerate true information because admitting to the truth is embarrassing; like claiming 1,000 civilians were killed when the actual number is closer to 600.
While you're absolutely right the Snowden is a wonderful man, your accusations for Assange have no basis.
The Swedish investigation had no intention of uncovering the truth about this this woman's possible assault. They endlessly refused any kind of telephonic interview with Assange, even though it is normal practice in Sweden. They were not passionately pursuing justice for a wronged woman - they were idly forcing a man into confinement to help their American allies. This is exactly the finding of the UN special investigator for torture.
Do you have anything concrete to back that up? Wikileaks has been foolhardedly devoted to exposing uncomfortable truths about institutions across the political spectrum. Some people are maybe upset that this probably lead to Trump's election.
> who convinced people to ignore a woman’s story of sexual assault
The preliminary investigation into that case has been dropped. As far as I'm aware, he made no effort to convince people to ignore the story, but he did strongly deny the allegations. This says nothing either way of his innocence or criminality.
RE: Anyone questioning Assange's ties to Russia, there's the following article. Assange was purportedly contacted about a pardon in 2017 in exchange for denying Russian involvement into leaking Clinton's emails (which Julian declined)
> Lawyers representing the United States at Julian Assange’s extradition trial in Britain have accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon by a congressman on the condition that he would help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee.
No evidence is needed, as it's not a concrete claim. In modern US political parlance, the term "Russian asset" is a spooky-sounding but otherwise meaningless term. It's a cheap-but-effective rhetorical trick for discrediting someone.
I like the idea that someone can't just say a thing on HN that has no known basis and make it a justification for their argument. Instead, here, any counter claim that Assange is decent, or was guided by good intentions, attracts instant downvotes without any counter argument or reflection whatsoever, but the notion that he's some deep state operative is perfectly reasonable.
I agree though with the implication that he isn't an American patriot. Clearly he's Australian/Swedish
There's a massive anti-Assange PR campaign everywhere on the internet and even people on HN are susceptible to it. I mean the guy didn't scoop his cat's litter box, what an awful man
In that case BLM is a Russian asset too since Mueller report revealed us how they ran their biggest social media pages and used the cause as a tool pre election.
Hilariously enough Trump let the patriot act expire this year, this wasn't covered in the news. You can however bet your last dollar that Biden will re-enact it within his 101 days in office.
There's just been so much going on this year that stuff gets buried.
I'm not willing to give Trump too much credit on this front, since he also normalized use of the military against peaceful domestic protestors for the purpose of cheap PR stunts.
Do people consider Snowden and Assange in the same league here? While Snowden seems to have been purely focused on exposing the spying mechanisms to influence that specific debate, it seems that Assange has gone quite a bit more political here? I'm sure my very superficial understanding of these stories gets a lot of details wrong, but didn't Assange purportedly coordinate with the Trump campaign to leak information at a significant time relative to the 2016 election?
To the masses they are both “those hackers who revealed secrets”. They occupy roughly the same political space - and arguably Assange was made to suffer significantly more than Snowden. Pardoning one but not the other would be politically inconsistent.
And... I would find clemency for Snowden an unexpected and unmitigated success. I would find clemency for Assange somewhat dubious, given the association with the Trump campaign. If that link (between Assange and the Trump campaign) really exists, wouldn't it be just more of Trump's transactional (awarding support or loyalty) pardoning... real or perceived at the least?
Roger Stone, a former Trump campaign advisor and friend, is a convicted felon due to his communication with Julian Assange and his subsequent cover-up during the FBI investigation. Trump commuted Roger Stone's sentence.
Glenn Greenwald seems to have a weird obsession with Russia not having anything to do with ops against the US.
And Matt Taibbi having a hardon for Hunter Biden. It's pretty clear that Hunter's board membership was a form of genteel, old school corruption, but focusing on that was clearly an attempt to replay the "buttery males" of 2016.
I think perhaps they might have been incentivized non financially (i.e., here's pictures of your loved ones at play -- you care about them right?).
I dunno. I'm an "independent voter" and I'm happy to harsh on any stupidity/corruption I see regardless of association.
But these are weird times -- there's a literal cult of personality around Trump and any sort of criticism is taken as a personal attack by those that worship him.
Let's see what gets uncovered with the new administration, shall we?
> May 9, 2017, President Donald Trump dismissed former Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, James Comey, who had been leading an ongoing Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigation into links between Trump associates and Russian officials.[51][52] This investigation, code named Crossfire Hurricane, began in July 2016 after the Australian government advised US authorities that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor in the Trump campaign, had met with one of their diplomats in May 2016 and "suggested the Trump team had received some kind of suggestion from Russia" that Russia could release information that would be damaging to Hillary Clinton.[53][54]
- from Wikipedia
This is why there was an investigation into russian collusion.
Bullshit. I've detracted Trump since I learned of his existence in the mid-80s. I would never vote for him for any office. I would not change the channel to hear him say something. He is a worse human than he is a President, and that's a very low bar indeed.
Still, the idea that he and any Russians worked together on his election has been extensively investigated, and no evidence to that effect has ever been made public. Confused people will cite the "Mueller" report, but those documents also contain no evidence to that effect. If there were something there, we would have seen it by now.
AINAL, but pardons prior to convictions are a grey area. President Ford pardoned Nixon before convictions, but no court contested that, so it can't really be used as a legal precedent.
In general, presidents usually pardon someone who's already serving a sentence under a federal law. Snowden and Assange are not. Reality Winner is, and so was Chelsea Manning (pardoned by Obama).
Of course, it's Trump we're talking about, so I don't think any sort of prior legal precedents really matters.
i don’t understand why trump didn’t pardon Assange and Snowden before the election. would have been a classic Trump move. it would shock people, generate free media coverage, make him stand out compared to Bush and Obama, and even get him extra democrat votes. he might have won the election even. i’m curious why he didn’t do it. probably it would upset military staff but he already upset them with pulling out from syria so he’s not afraid of that
It would have lost significant amounts of law&order and military-friendly votes. He’s clearly not on good terms with military and intelligence hierarchies, but the wider constituencies still largely vote for him; a move like that would have jeopardized that grassroot vote without really firing up any other base (let’s be honest - dems would not have voted for more years under him, once the pardoning happened... they would have clapped and said “finally something decent” and still voted to change).
Now though, it would be a big fuck-you to the establishment figures who fought him internally from day 1, which would suit his image. It could also go some way towards improving his figure in the history books, something most presidents tend to care about once they stop being concerned with everyday political streetfights. It has to be seen if he’s really at that stage though - were he younger, I wouldn’t put past him to challenge again in 4 years.
Slightly more seriously, Russia seems to get no credit for hosting Snowden, who's otherwise being lauded as a hero in these comments. Of course they're doing this to thumb their nose at the US, but the fact that Snowden isn't (apparently) even being pressured to serve his new masters is somewhat surprising.
For running Silk Road perhaps, but I never fully understood the whole "hired hits" part of this case. Did Ulbrecht actually think he was hiring hitmen to commit murder? Was it just bravado? Because I can't understand supporting Ulbrecht's clemency if he really thought he was hiring assassins to kill 5 people.
Edit: To be clear, because I've already got what feel like knee jerk downvotes, I honestly don't understand the hitman charges in the case and would like if someone has any more info. I mean, the chat logs looked pretty damning, but then all of those charges seem to have been thrown out, so I'd like to understand the reason for that. Were the chat logs forged in some way? Was it a technicality? Did the Feds just not care because they had enough in the drug charges?
Edit:
To quote Wikipedia (more precise than my statement):
Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder-for-hire,[28][36] but evidence was introduced at trial supporting the allegations.[28][37] The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life, and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to affirm the life sentence.[37] A separate indictment against Ulbricht in federal court in Maryland on a single murder-for-hire charge, alleging that he contracted to kill one of his employees (a former Silk Road moderator),[38] was dismissed with prejudice by prosecutors in July 2018, after his New York conviction and sentence became final.[39][40]
I know nothing about the justice system, so how was an allegation as grave as murder-for-hire considered for sentencing (and surely informed the bulk of the sentencing) without being one of the actual charges?
His only convictions were money laundering, computer hacking,
and conspiracy to traffic narcotics.
I'm sure the court documents put a much finer point on it than a Wikipedia paragraph, but that's too much effort right now at 11:40pm. Just looking for some light HN procrastination.
Actually, the Wikipedia article led me to help answer my own question. The second point made in this amicus curiae brief in the request to the Supreme Court to overturn Ulbrecht's sentence makes the same point that you do: that it is not OK for judges to enhance sentences by determining their own facts for the purposes of sentencing that were not affirmed in charges for which the jury found the defendant guilty. FWIW SCOTUS didn't take the case, but as least some lawyers who presumably have some idea what they're talking about agree with you.
congratulations, you found one of the many troubles with this case.
they used things he wasn't on trial for, to sway the jury and influence his sentencing.
they also withheld that the murder-for-hire theatre was done by corrupt federal agents who were already captured and on trial for doing that amongst other things with silk road.
For sentencing, almost anything can be presented to the court to enhance/decrease (aggravating/mitigating circumstances, in legal jargon) the sentence, regardless of if the thing presented has been proven or would even be admissible during a trial. The rules of evidence do not apply to sentencing/disposition - the court often considers things like remorse of the convict, the convict’s history, and can also consider other allegations made against the convict even if those allegations have not been proved in court. An example of this is when the dozens and dozens of victims of Larry Nassar spoke at his sentencing, even though he was not actually convicted of abusing them all. Judges have broad discretion in what they consider at sentencing.
And, unfortunately for Ulbrecht, the crimes he was convicted of carried high maximum sentences. I think the minimum he was facing was 20 years. The whole thing is ridiculous.
Edit, for clarity: the ridiculous sentencing of Ulbrecht is ridiculous, not a judge allowing so many of Nassar’s victims to speak at his sentencing. When I re-read my comment I realized it could be construed that way...
I had the same question so I did some digging. Here's some relevant excerpts from the decision from the US Court of Appeals:
> A district court may consider as part of its sentencing determination uncharged conduct proven by a preponderance of the evidence as long as that conduct does not increase either the statutory minimum or maximum available punishment.
> ...
> Here, the six drug-related deaths (and more importantly, Ulbricht's attempted murders for hire) were uncharged facts that did not increase either the statutory twenty-year minimum or the maximum life sentence applicable to the crimes of which he was found guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, by the jury. [1]
And later:
> Thus, even without considering that enhancement, the drug convictions yielded an offense level of 48, which is higher than the maximum offense level recognized by the Guidelines, for which a sentence of life imprisonment is recommended even for someone who, like Ulbricht, has no prior criminal convictions.
> ...
> Accordingly, while a life sentence for selling drugs alone would give pause, we would be hard put to find such a sentence beyond the bounds of reason for drug crimes of this magnitude.[67] But the facts of this case involve much more than simply facilitating the sale of narcotics. [2]
To summarize, Apprendi v. New Jersey says that facts not found by a jury cannot be used to raise sentence maximums. However, sentencing guidelines for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of give a maximum life sentence. Therefore, using uncharged facts to inform sentencing is permissible because it doesn't actually increase the maximum possible sentence. Had evidence to those things not been presented at trial, it's possible (probable?) that his sentence would have been shorter.
Personally, this seems problematic as while it doesn't technically increase the sentencing maximum, it allows the judge to bypass the jury to determine guilt on certain facts.
A couple minor issues with the summary, as there is some confusion of sentencing guideline ranges and statutory ranges for the particular offenses:
> To summarize, Apprendi v. New Jersey says that facts not found by a jury cannot be used to raise sentence maximums.
Correct.
> However, sentencing guidelines for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of give a maximum life sentence. Therefore, using uncharged facts to inform sentencing is permissible because it doesn't actually increase the maximum possible sentence.
Two different things are in play here that seem to have been somewhat conflated:
Because the statutory punishment for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of by the jury has a maximum life sentence, uncharged conduct proven by a preponderance of the evidence can be used to set sentencing within that maximum without violating the right to trial by jury, so the court did not act impermissibly by considering the uncharged conduct and setting life imprisonment having considered it.
Because the sentencing guidelines range for the offenses he was convicted of by the jury, without the uncharged conduct considered, also supported an offense level for which a life sentence is recommended for an offender with no prior convictions, the sentence of life imprisonment would have been reasonable for the drug crimes alone, even had the court not considered the uncharged murder for hire actions. That is, a life sentence would have been called for by the guidelines for the drug offenses alone.
And yet that's profoundly unsatisfying. Ulbrecht was not convicted of murder-for-hire; he was accused of it, and that accusation influenced his sentence for other crimes. Which a fairly large part of this community believe aren't actual crimes.
He was convicted of the charge for which the murder-for-hire was a predicate! A finding of fact in the trial was in fact that he ordered someone's murder!
He was convicted of conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and evidence of a murder-for-hire plot was used to support the narcotics trafficking conspiracy.
You may think this indirection is a minor technical difference, but I see a totally different standard of evidence. This isn't "beyond a reasonable doubt". If the prosecutors thought they could sustain a murder-for-hire charge, I'm sure they would have prosecuted it. It's a more serious crime! So I'm skeptical.
Taking a different tack here - even if he was in fact guilty of attempted murder-for-hire, what's a reasonable punishment for that? Is 7 years in prison long enough?
I don’t know enough about the law in the USA to give an answer to your first point (whether the attempted murder allegations should factor into sentencing).
However, to your second point: no, 7 years is not enough for attempted murder. Failing to commit a crime (because your hitmen were actually the police) is as morally reprehensible as succeeding. You performed the actions, formed intent, it’s just the victim got lucky. Your sentence shouldn’t be reduced because of their luck.
I dont know, but gut feeling wise, murder for hire feels very wrong. Operating an exchange where consenting adults bought and sold dangerous substances where they had a reasonable idea what the risks were seems much less so.
I think its fair to spend >7 years on muder for hire (if that was the charge). The other charges not so much, but most drug charges in usa seem excessive to me, so that's probably par for the course.
> even if he was in fact guilty of attempted murder-for-hire, what's a reasonable punishment for that?
He was not prosecuted and sentenced for that so life time in prison seems unjust.
But such sentence would be reasonable for a serious attempted murder (like for succesfull murder). I see no reason to significantly lower penalty just because someone was incompetent or stopped. 7 years seems clearly too low for that.
I don't think there should be much of a difference at all between the punishments for attempted murder and murder. Just enough to keep someone from trying to finish the job if they feel that they might need to kill someone to reduce the likelihood of going to jail for attempted murder.
I'm honestly curious. You're a bright guy, and you seem pretty confident, so I suspect I'm missing something here.
Which activity among [money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics] requires murder-for-hire? Is there a fifth charge for which he was convicted that I've missed?
Is there some non-intuitive legal definition of conspiracy to traffic narcotics, where conspiracy to traffic requires conspiracy to distribute plus conspiracy to commit murder, or something like that?
Also, is there any legal or strategic reason to drop the charge for the predicate crime? It might make sense as a legal strategy to reduce attention on a shaky part of the case, but it seems that the defense would draw plenty of attention to a shaky key pillar of the case anyway.
The murder-for-hire isn’t a strict requirement to reach a conviction for conspiracy to traffic narcotics, obviously. I don’t think anyone is claiming that.
He was never charged with most of that so he didn't have an opportunity to defend against it. I personally found it hard to read as something he believed was real, ... assuming he actually had those conversations at all.
One of these discussions goes something like this:
Crook: Sorry dread pirate, I don't want to extort you but a big bad nasty dealer is demanding money from me.
DPR: Put him on, let me see if I can work it out.
Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: This big bad dealer.
DPR: Okay why don't I pay you what the 'other guy' was demanding, and you make him go away forever.
Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: Can do.
I can't be the only person that read that as a subtext of "I know I'm just talking to you, but I want to make it clear that you're not going to get to try this stunt multiple times"-- arguably an assault. But I would just assume that getting death threats is just a cost of doing business as an extortionist.
Of course, there is no allegation that anyone actually died at all.
Keep in mind that much of this evidence was collected by a couple of phenomenally corrupt officers who compromised the silkroad systems and robbed it blind (some of whom have now been convicted but it appears there may have been an additional one who wasn't caught). Ulbrecht's defence was denied access to large amounts of potentially exculpatory evidence because the prosecution completely concealed the corrupt officers from the case.
It is absolutely a miscarriage of justice to hold the murder for hire allegations against him when the prosecution dare not have charged any of it because doing so would have forced them to expose that the chain of custody of their evidence went through extremely corrupt LE who had a tens of millions of dollar incentive to keep all the attention on someone else while they lined their pockets.
But I'm just some internet hothead.
Here is what the National Lawyers Guild said:
> “The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial.”
Because of this I think we can never know the truth, but it a basic bedrock principle of our legal system that when the prosecution is corrupt and engages in misconduct such that we can't be sure of the truth, we'd rather let a guilty person walk than wrongfully convict or reward unethical and inequitable conduct by the state.
(10) (b) On or about March 29, 2013, ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, a/k/a/ "Dread Pirate Roberts," a/k/a "DPR," a/k/a "Sild Road," the defendant, in connection with operating the Silk Road website, solicited a Silk Road user to execute a murder-for-hire of another Silk Road user, who was threatening to release the identities of thousands of users of the site.
Indeed, that was the log I gave a characture of above-- you'll note that there is no mention of the supposed four other ones as they entirely rested on claims made by the now-convicted officers Carl Mark Force IV and Shaun W. Bridges.
> To date, there have been precisely zero murder charges filed. Instead, the indictment has been changed without explanation, the formal charges omitted, and the broader accusations buried within a lesser drug trafficking charge.
> Of the six murder indictments trumpeted by the U.S. government in the days following Ulbricht’s Oct. 2013 arrest, five have fallen off the table and the sixth sits untouched in a separate indictment (legalese for an unproven allegation) that was purposefully left out of the upcoming trial.
Of course, we know now why they didn't charge-- those charges were impossibly tainted by the involvement of the corrupt officers. But the trial was no less prejudiced just because they skipped charging on the murder-for-hire parts: those corrupt officers had administrative control over the systems, they fabricated evidence to conceal their heist, and so on.
Had the compromise of the investigation not been fatal to the prosecutions case they simply wouldn't have risked concealing it from the defence.
If what you were trying to communicate was that Ross Ulbricht was never charged with ordering a murder, all I'm saying is, the indictment flatly refutes that.
Whatever corruption you say taints the charge, it taints the entire Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy charge as well! The murder-for-hire scheme is a predicate!
Pedantically, you are incorrect. The alleged one of these instances an was admitted of "of his efforts to protect Silk Road and his interests therein.".
It was not a charge and no one was required to believe an ounce of it to convict him. It literally wasn't charged, nor was he convicted of it.
If he was charged it would have been possible for the jury to find him innocent of it, but that was literally impossible here. It was something the trial literally could not have falsified because it was no something it gave a verdict to. All that would be been possible is that the jury could have found him innocent of the broader conspiracy to distribute narcotics-- a charge that was supported by many different pieces of evidence.
> In order to aid or abet another to commit a crime, it is
necessary that the Government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly and intentionally associated himself in some way with the crime, and that he knowingly and intentionally sought, by some act, to help make the crime succeed.
To further emphasize this, the appellate court wrote (emphasis mine):
> Here, the six drug-related deaths (and more importantly, Ulbricht's attempted murders for hire) were uncharged facts
But I do also agree with you on the rest:
I am of the opinion that almost the entire investigation was tainted, unfortunately-- because the corrupt officers had administrative access to the systems and tampered with the evidence. And not only did this potentially spoil almost all of their material evidence, but the defence was prejudicially denied knowledge of this spoliation.
[Aside, I want to thank you for your replies, it's been years since I looked at any of this. Your responses made mine more accurate in context.]
No need for proof or to mention that that the "User" was 1 of 2 corrupt FBI agents involved who is also now in jail for stealing millions in BTC during the case when you don't actually try to charge someone with the Murder-for-hire. The charge is conspiracy, there are several overt acts listed, not all of them need to be proven to be convicted of conspiracy.
In fact, the opposite is true, the burden of proof was in fact on the DOJ to prove the murder-for-hire scheme, which was, as you can see, charged, and they met that burden at trial.
Are you not familiar with how things work in the US? The burden is to prove one overt act in a conspiracy charge, you can list all the bullshit you want and there is no need to prove it all beyond reasonable doubt.
Why were all the actual murder for hire charges dropped and instead included in a side notes of a conspiracy sentencing? Seems obvious to me that it was because there is no way they would get a conviction.
There was an irc chat log and nothing more offered as evidence. Later the agent involved was convicted of stealing BTC from defendant. You could say the relevant fact is that an irc log on a compromised computer had a questionable chain of evidence. The logical error of assuming something quoted in a sentencing as fact is "appeal to authority" if you want to look it up.
The government expressly disclaimed any such burden. See Ulbricht’s (unsuccessful) petition for certiorari [1] linked elsewhere in this thread:
> The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial. During closing argument, the U.S. attorney explicitly advised the jury: “[T]o be clear, the defendant has not been charged for these attempted murders here. You’re not required to make any findings about them. And the government does not contend that those murders actually occurred.”
The evidence presented suggests that he did believe that; moreover, despite repeated claims to the contrary on message boards, his murder-for-hire scheme was brought to trial; it was a predicate on his conspiracy charge.
He literally wrote in his journal about how he hoped that having these people murdered would make it easier to run his drug empire..
Ulbricht isn’t a good person, he had a very bad lawyer which probably cost him several decades of imprisonment but just because he was a “hacker” who did his crimes with new technology doesn’t somehow make him better than any of the other people in prison for the same crimes. Seriously, sit down and read the journals they admitted into evidence, the guy is a sociopath focused on getting rich through selling drugs he knew were killing people.
I love the fact that in the 2010s, and for someone as technical as Ulbricht, that writing in a journal about criminal conspiracies did NOT sound any kind of alerts. Of all of the hoops he was jumping through to stay undetected, all of the OpSec he had to have practiced, yet he kept a detailed journal. Oops? Just don't know how to respond
It was so mundane and psychotic.. Literally from line to line just error logging servers and talking about ordering half million dollar hits.
> being blackmailed with user info. talking with large distributor (hell's angels)
> got word that blackmailer was excuted, created file upload script, started to fix problem with bond refunds over 3 months old
> reconfigured nginx to not time out. almost all errors have disappeared.
> sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates, began setting up hecho as standby, very high load (300/16), took site offline and refactored main and category pages to be more efficient
coming from a parliamentary democracy (legislatures here technically do have the power to pardon but it's very rarely exercised) I find the practise to be extremely weird.
It essentially inserts an insane amount of arbitrariness and personal favouritism into what is supposed to be an impartial legal process. Given how often it has been abused for political purposes in the US it seems particularly problematic.
The Framers of the Constitution believed that they could thwart the rise of political parties by having a President and legislature who were elected completely separately and would be locked in a power struggle against each other. The pardon power is to prevent legislative overreach -- if the legislature made jaywalking a federal crime with a 10 year jail sentence, the President (or the jury) could simply refuse to allow this law to be enforced.
Despite the high profile political cases, the majority of presidential pardons are given to people who have sat in jail for a long time on crimes that are not at the highest level of turpitude such as murder/rape/kidnapping.
In order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, the Office of the Pardon Attorney was created, along with a process for reviewing and vetting pardon requests.
Historically it has not been quite as arbitrary or controversial as one might think.
I keep an eye on some of the right wing forums and I’ve seen this claim repeatedly made about various people like Snowden and Asante and various others. Everytime the claims turn out to be totally baseless wishful thinking. So while I understand the feeling that Ulbricht was treated unfairly I would take this with an enormous pinch of salt. All that’s going on at the moment is that pardons are being considered for lots of things and people are trying to push for their own favourite candidates by trying to rally support in the press.
The vast majority of pardon pleas go unnoticed and yes, media campaigns try to make it seem like these things are getting the attention they might deserve... yet even if trump doesnt do it, the legalization of pot, decrim in oregon/cali, mdma/ketamine studies, etc are all pointing towards a (bare minimum) decriminalized future, one in which criminals like ross will begin to look less like criminals.
Also the fact that news articles are even willing to suggest that trump is considering it is fascinating; I have yet to see news articles suggesting something similar of say, nixon. Do you think ross wont be a free man in 20 years?
If he does pardon himself, I believe that means he can't take the 5th when asked about the things he's pardoned himself for? Which is going to be spectacular when he eventually gets deposed because you know he just can't help himself.
Why would he care that he can’t take the 5th, if he has pardoned himself and anyone else that he cares about who would be incriminated by his testimony?
If you're going to do Ulbricht, which is a giant FU to the FBI (who Trump believes screwed him over), you might as well go ahead and do Assange and Snowden and finish the job. At this point in the unhinged circus show that the US has become, I'm really looking forward to it just to watch the spectacle that will be the deep state meltdown and media tantrum ('one of his final actions as President will be to demonstrate just how lawless the Trump Administration was' - or something like that).
I'd put money on Assange having a very slim shot at a pardon and Snowden having zero shot (Trump ultimately leans toward being a big government, big national security type).
Snowden, Assange, Ulbricht, Manning, Kim Dotcom - all under the Obama / Biden Administration, and now Biden is about to be President (the guy that took direct orders from Hollywood & Co. to go after Kim Dotcom). I'd also bet on another wave of martyrs at the hands of the Biden Admin.
> Trump ultimately leans toward being a big government, big national security type
I'd say he has very little ideology that he's committed to other than his own personal gain. He's likely to pardon anyone who might have shown him fealty in the past or who is willing to engage in quid-pro-quo.
He literally has no ideology or apparent political convictions of any kind. His position on any given issue can change 3 times in the same day and his disposition has no other pattern besides consistent inconsistency.
Go read Barr's resignation letter. Trump is a high variance process that needs to be smoothed to understand him. Recall that Barr did not need to make a name for himself. Nor does Barr ever need another job.
Or if you want to be more charitable, whatever opinion is most useful for the immediate moment. But I think that's an overestimation, lots of them aren't that coherent.
It's some combination of those things. Lots of them are just random filler and arbitrary ramblings, but the ones he gets pressed on repeatedly are answered in whatever way provokes a desired reaction at that exact moment. Some of it even seems to be remorseless and haphazard A/B testing. He's well beyond a severe pathological liar, as most such people would lack an innate desire to deceive with such intense frequency, and there might not even be a name yet for whatever trait he exhibits. Psychologists are just forbidden by their licensing body from commenting on a president's mental state while still in office.
It chose to say that pardoning Ross would "own the libs" because "liberal judges from disaster run sanctuary cities" colluded with "corrupt deep state agents" to make a mockery of our justice system.
Have new messaging for the new administration, better remember to turn this particular bot off.
Basically, the judge sentenced him for a crime that he wasn't convicted of (murder-for-hire): 'When she [the judge] gave him double life plus 40 years, she said the "murders significantly justified the life sentence."'
The most heartbreaking part of the story is the letter Ross read to the judge before sentencing:
"If you find my conviction warrants a sentence that allows for my eventual release, I will not lose my love for humanity during my years of imprisonment, . . .
I will do what I can to make up for not being there for the people I love, and to make the world a better place.
Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made... I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel ... a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker."
https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1025008589080080384