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The level of corruption is indeed staggering: > According to a government document, Force, operating as "Nob," in August 2013 convinced Ulbricht to pay him $50
by Pyxl101 11y ago
The level of corruption is indeed staggering:
> According to a government document, Force, operating as "Nob," in August 2013 convinced Ulbricht to pay him $50,000 in bitcoins by pretending he had information on the investigation. While Force reported the discussion to the DEA, he falsely claimed no payment had been made but instead diverted the bitcoins to a personal account, prosecutors said. Force, also without authorities' knowledge, used another online moniker, "French Maid," and offered Ulbricht information on the investigation for about $98,000 in bitcoins in September 2013, prosecutors said.
The guy was playing both sides. How can his testimony against Ulbricht be considered trustworthy at this point? I haven't followed the Silk Road case closely, but from my not-carefully-examined position, it seems like the government waited to bring charges against Force until after their case against Ulbricht was well on its way, or had already concluded. I wonder if the case against Ulbricht would have gone differently had he been able to challenge the credibility of the witnesses against him based on what we know today, that they are guilty of these crimes. I also wonder whether Ulbricht's prosecution knew about Force's crimes at the time, and I wonder whether that was disclosed to Ulbricht.
Where does this all leave Ulbricht?
- _delirium 11y agoUlbricht unsuccessfully motioned for a new trial a few months ago on that basis: http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-judge-says-no-new-trial-despite-agents-alleged-corruption/ http://www.wired.com/2015/04/silk-road-judge-says-no-new-tri...
- FatalLogic 11y ago>How can his testimony against Ulbricht be considered trustworthy at this point? It's my understanding that his testimony wasn't used. But despite that, such rottenness at the heart of the investigation (two agents up to their necks in corruption) is seriously troubling, because it leaves any reasonable person wondering what else was going on that we don't know about. It's also deeply troubling that the unproven (though admittedly plausible) murder-for-hire allegations could be used to taint Ulbricht's defense, undermine support for him, and as a reason to increase his sentence, while the corruption within the investigating team was kept hidden from the public, and even the jury, throughout the trial. It appears to be a blatant double standard to me.
- ludbb 11y agoAfter reading http://www.scribd.com/doc/283722300/Ross-Ulbricht-Sentencing http://www.scribd.com/doc/283722300/Ross-Ulbricht-Sentencing I'm a strong believer that the only thing that could remotely help Ulbricht is bringing evidence that he's gone crazy for several years now. Judge strongly believes he ordered at least 5 murder-for-hire (but no bodies have been found), strongly believes that he was aware about all this despite the claim that this was just an experiment and the consequences were not known in advance, and so on.
- danielvf 11y agoThere were two parallel investigation teams with different agencies. A different team tracked down Ulbrich, and it was the other team's evidence that was used at the trial.