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The Silk Road caused unprecedented embarrassment for the DEA and other agencies. Each news report about it just made it more known and popular, and highlighted

The Silk Road caused unprecedented embarrassment for the DEA and other agencies. Each news report about it just made it more known and popular, and highlighted the fact that the Federal government couldn't track down the website or its administrators. The combination of Tor and Bitcoin made a brazen drug bazaar untraceable yet widely accessible for the first time ever. So they brought the hammer down hard. He did get slapped with attempted murder for trying to hire a hitman online, as well. But doubtless his sentence reflected how incompetent it made the feds look.

umvi 6y ago
> He did get slapped with attempted murder for trying to hire a hitman online, as well Holy crap, the way you read these threads you would think drug dealers are totally harmless and being wrongfully punished for victimless crimes but this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder. But yeah, a bit over the top.
- thatcat 6y ago
  >this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder That's a gross overstatement. An agent who had infiltrated the site convinced him to agree to allow the agent to hire a hitman to kill another person on the site. This was after agents had already kidnapped and tortured the second person and used his account to threaten dpr. There was no attempt at conviction on that charge.
  - MertsA 6y ago
    That agent was also Carl Mark Force IV, who is currently in prison for, among other things, surreptitiously trying to extort money out of DPR on the side and hiding that from the DEA. The prosecution withheld all evidence surrounding the corrupt DEA agent and Secret Service agent from the defense. I don't know if Ross wrote that message or not, but at the very least Force was already caught trying to frame the Silk Road administrator they had in custody for the theft. I find his testimony more suspicious than Ross's, and the logs were 100% up to him to write whatever he wanted.
  - seebetter 6y ago
    And the victim Curtis Green said that maybe Carl Mark Force made up the evidence against Ross. Plus Force actually endangered Green’s life by doxing him as an informant to drug dealers. Not to mention the Baltimore Task Force threatened to punish Green for stealing bitcoin from some admin access when it was in fact the corrupt federal agents who did it.
  - meowface 6y ago
    This comment greatly distorts the situation and neglects to mention the other instances. If he did order the hits, I think he deserves life, and there's very good evidence he did.
- vmception 6y ago
  wow you're impressionable, switching to the newest information to you at ever step of the way there was miscarriage of justice where dubious non-trial information was used in acquiring evidence, dubious non-trial information was used to get a conviction, and dubious non-trial information was used to rationalize sentencing these are problems
- vmception 6y ago
  there was miscarriage of justice where dubious non-trial information was used in acquiring evidence, dubious non-trial information was used to get a conviction, and dubious non-trial information was used to rationalize sentencing these are problems
- jMyles 6y ago
  > this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder Gonna need to see some evidence there. Some real evidence, not the ludicrous logs that Carl Force claimed to have created from chats with him.
woah 6y ago
He never “got slapped” with attempted murder. The prosecution floated rumors and allegations in the media about some kind of far fetched hit man situation in a (successful) attempt to influence the jury to make the other charges stick. However, they were never confident enough in these allegations to actually bring charges.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- voxic11 6y ago
  Worse than that. They used the murder for hire charges as part of sentencing even though they were never proven.
  - pc86 6y ago
    Do you have a sources that an unconvicted charge played a role in his sentencing?
    - heavenlyblue 6y ago
      Um. Every single person I know (including me up until now) thinks that he was imprisoned both for owning the drug marketplace AND the hit charges.
      - pc86 6y ago
        Ok great, but "every single person some random person on the internet knows" isn't a source.
      - meowface 6y ago
        He was.
    - voxic11 6y ago
      The sentencing decision can be found here https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/press-releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-in-manhattan-federal-court-to-life-in-prison https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/pr... It includes references to the murder for hire allegations as justification for the sentence. > ULBRICHT also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its users, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out.

umvi 6y ago

> He did get slapped with attempted murder for trying to hire a hitman online, as well Holy crap, the way you read these threads you would think drug dealers are totally harmless and being wrongfully punished for victimless crimes but this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder. But yeah, a bit over the top.

thatcat 6y ago
>this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder That's a gross overstatement. An agent who had infiltrated the site convinced him to agree to allow the agent to hire a hitman to kill another person on the site. This was after agents had already kidnapped and tortured the second person and used his account to threaten dpr. There was no attempt at conviction on that charge.
- MertsA 6y ago
  That agent was also Carl Mark Force IV, who is currently in prison for, among other things, surreptitiously trying to extort money out of DPR on the side and hiding that from the DEA. The prosecution withheld all evidence surrounding the corrupt DEA agent and Secret Service agent from the defense. I don't know if Ross wrote that message or not, but at the very least Force was already caught trying to frame the Silk Road administrator they had in custody for the theft. I find his testimony more suspicious than Ross's, and the logs were 100% up to him to write whatever he wanted.
- seebetter 6y ago
  And the victim Curtis Green said that maybe Carl Mark Force made up the evidence against Ross. Plus Force actually endangered Green’s life by doxing him as an informant to drug dealers. Not to mention the Baltimore Task Force threatened to punish Green for stealing bitcoin from some admin access when it was in fact the corrupt federal agents who did it.
- meowface 6y ago
  This comment greatly distorts the situation and neglects to mention the other instances. If he did order the hits, I think he deserves life, and there's very good evidence he did.
vmception 6y ago
wow you're impressionable, switching to the newest information to you at ever step of the way there was miscarriage of justice where dubious non-trial information was used in acquiring evidence, dubious non-trial information was used to get a conviction, and dubious non-trial information was used to rationalize sentencing these are problems
vmception 6y ago
there was miscarriage of justice where dubious non-trial information was used in acquiring evidence, dubious non-trial information was used to get a conviction, and dubious non-trial information was used to rationalize sentencing these are problems
jMyles 6y ago
> this dude showed he was totally willing to commit murder Gonna need to see some evidence there. Some real evidence, not the ludicrous logs that Carl Force claimed to have created from chats with him.

woah 6y ago

He never “got slapped” with attempted murder. The prosecution floated rumors and allegations in the media about some kind of far fetched hit man situation in a (successful) attempt to influence the jury to make the other charges stick. However, they were never confident enough in these allegations to actually bring charges.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
voxic11 6y ago
Worse than that. They used the murder for hire charges as part of sentencing even though they were never proven.
- pc86 6y ago
  Do you have a sources that an unconvicted charge played a role in his sentencing?
  - heavenlyblue 6y ago
    Um. Every single person I know (including me up until now) thinks that he was imprisoned both for owning the drug marketplace AND the hit charges.
    - pc86 6y ago
      Ok great, but "every single person some random person on the internet knows" isn't a source.
    - meowface 6y ago
      He was.
  - voxic11 6y ago
    The sentencing decision can be found here https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/press-releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-in-manhattan-federal-court-to-life-in-prison https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us/field-offices/newyork/news/pr... It includes references to the murder for hire allegations as justification for the sentence. > ULBRICHT also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its users, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out.