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I'm having a hard time squaring your comment with the wikipedia article that you seem to agree with. Ulbricht wasn't convicted on murder for hire charges and t

I'm having a hard time squaring your comment with the wikipedia article that you seem to agree with. Ulbricht wasn't convicted on murder for hire charges and the time he was charged on a murder for hire thing that charge was dropped. You seem to be saying that the reason he wasn't charged/convicted is because nobody was actually murdered. That seems hard for me to believe because the state would have known nobody was actually murdered when they were writing the indictment (which alleges the murder for hire plot) or when they were bringing the original charges. It's also true that agents involved in the plot, the agent Ulbricht thought he was buying the hit from specifically, were arrested and convicted for stealing from the silk road. I think it's way more plausible that the government decided not to go in to the extent of the corruption of their officers at trial, because it would provide a good reason to think about what other government dishonesty their might be, rather than the government deciding that they can't charge attempted murder for hire because nobody died. https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/ https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-...

tptacek 4y ago
51% of Wikipedians can believe whatever they'd like to, but the primary source documents are right there for you to read. Nobody was actually murdered because the murder-for-hire scheme was an FBI sting.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  But the primary source documents all agree that Ulbricht wasn't charged or convicted with murder-for-hire and that the agent Ulbricht contracted with was arrested and convicted for corruption-related crimes. It's also obviously not true that somebody has to be dead for the state to charge murder-for-hire related crimes. If that were the case, the state wouldn't have agents pretending to be hitmen to catch people trying to hire hitmen.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    I really don't know how to state this any more plainly: he was charged, in the same manner as other drug kingpins have been charged, with a narcotics conspiracy whose overt acts --- in the indictment, as charged behavior, which the jury had to find true beyond a reasonable doubt --- were comprised of two different murder-for-hire schemes. He was convicted of that charge. He appealed, and his appeal didn't contest that charge or any of the findings of fact (or, for that matter, testimony leading up to that finding of fact) for that charge. The second bit, about nobody needing to be dead for him to be charged, we agree on. One reason I think people are confused about this is that there was a second prosecution, by a different team of prosecutors in a different case (out of Baltimore?) that charged the murder-for-hire scheme more directly. That may be, but he was still charged for it in the SDNY case, which earned him a life sentence. SDNY was not evasive about this! They not only indicted for the murder-for-hire scheme, won a conviction on it, and had him sentenced based in large part on it, but also crowed about it in their press release. I'm sort of baffled by the extremely common belief that the DOJ "dropped the charges" about the murder-for-hire scheme. They did more or less the opposite thing.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      "Ulbricht, 31, of San Francisco, California, was convicted of the following seven offenses after a four-week jury trial: distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering." https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pi... Noticeably not on that list is anything related to murder, attempted murder, solicitation of murder, or murder-for-hire. If I understand you correctly you are saying that the attempted murder is an element of his continuing criminal enterprise - or something like that. I don't believe this though and I haven't seen any evidence of this from you. Googling for people who are convicted for hiring fake hitmen I see that they are charged with things like "Solicitation of murder" and not "Continuing criminal enterprise." Ulbricht was not charged with murder for hire in New York and he wasn't convicted of it ever. Ulbricht was charged with murder for hire in Maryland and those charges were dropped.

tptacek 4y ago

51% of Wikipedians can believe whatever they'd like to, but the primary source documents are right there for you to read. Nobody was actually murdered because the murder-for-hire scheme was an FBI sting.

ALittleLight 4y ago
But the primary source documents all agree that Ulbricht wasn't charged or convicted with murder-for-hire and that the agent Ulbricht contracted with was arrested and convicted for corruption-related crimes. It's also obviously not true that somebody has to be dead for the state to charge murder-for-hire related crimes. If that were the case, the state wouldn't have agents pretending to be hitmen to catch people trying to hire hitmen.
- tptacek 4y ago
  I really don't know how to state this any more plainly: he was charged, in the same manner as other drug kingpins have been charged, with a narcotics conspiracy whose overt acts --- in the indictment, as charged behavior, which the jury had to find true beyond a reasonable doubt --- were comprised of two different murder-for-hire schemes. He was convicted of that charge. He appealed, and his appeal didn't contest that charge or any of the findings of fact (or, for that matter, testimony leading up to that finding of fact) for that charge. The second bit, about nobody needing to be dead for him to be charged, we agree on. One reason I think people are confused about this is that there was a second prosecution, by a different team of prosecutors in a different case (out of Baltimore?) that charged the murder-for-hire scheme more directly. That may be, but he was still charged for it in the SDNY case, which earned him a life sentence. SDNY was not evasive about this! They not only indicted for the murder-for-hire scheme, won a conviction on it, and had him sentenced based in large part on it, but also crowed about it in their press release. I'm sort of baffled by the extremely common belief that the DOJ "dropped the charges" about the murder-for-hire scheme. They did more or less the opposite thing.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    "Ulbricht, 31, of San Francisco, California, was convicted of the following seven offenses after a four-week jury trial: distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering." https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pirate-roberts-sentenced-life-federal-prison-creating https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ross-ulbricht-aka-dread-pi... Noticeably not on that list is anything related to murder, attempted murder, solicitation of murder, or murder-for-hire. If I understand you correctly you are saying that the attempted murder is an element of his continuing criminal enterprise - or something like that. I don't believe this though and I haven't seen any evidence of this from you. Googling for people who are convicted for hiring fake hitmen I see that they are charged with things like "Solicitation of murder" and not "Continuing criminal enterprise." Ulbricht was not charged with murder for hire in New York and he wasn't convicted of it ever. Ulbricht was charged with murder for hire in Maryland and those charges were dropped.