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What has always sat odd with me regarding this, is we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this. They stole, so it's not hard to imagine they

What has always sat odd with me regarding this, is we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this. They stole, so it's not hard to imagine they planted evidence too.

mplewis 2y ago
What evidence would you have even needed to plant? He ran the largest internet drug market and openly tried to assassinate a competitor.
- TheAmazingRace 2y ago
  Agreed. He willingly engaged with the alleged hitman (which ended up being the FBI contact). He didn't need to do anything or not have the thought to murder others cross his mind.
  - andirk 2y ago
    Allegedly. The 2 rules of his Fight Club were no underage sex stuff and no physical harm. That hitman claim was not part of his charges or sentencing. The heavy sentencing was to like "send a message" the judge said.
    - TheAmazingRace 2y ago
      They weren't part of his sentencing because a different court entirely was pursuing the hit for hire attempt charge, but because another court in NY got the book thrown at him for running the site, they decided to drop it because it didn't seem necessary anymore. In hindsight, the prosecution probably wished they didn't do that, since they are said to have had overwhelming evidence and proof, and there is even a Wired article about chat logs pertaining to DPR seeking services, but those are the breaks! If you don't do your due diligence, criminals can be let off on a technicality too!
      - andirk 2y ago
        I haven't looked into the case(s) for years, but prosecutors don't often just drop charges because other charges were found guilty. People get charged even after life sentences have been handed down.
        TheAmazingRace 2y ago
        Perhaps. I can't think of why they ultimately decided not to move forward with it, but here we are.
        buckle8017 2y ago
        They dropped the murder for hire charges because discovery would have.. discovered the FBI doing very very bad things.
        TheAmazingRace 2y ago
        I doubt that's the reason. It could simply be bandwidth reasons as another commenter in the thread implied.
        WrongAssumption 2y ago
        Prosecutors do not work for the FBI, and the FBI has no say in who gets prosecuted nor for which charges.
        echoangle 2y ago
        And you don’t think the prosecutors consider the interests of the FBI when deciding what to prosecute? In cases where they want to use FBI evidence and probably want ongoing cooperation of the FBI for future cases?
        lupusreal 2y ago
        Prosecutors work with, not for, law enforcement and generally do what they reasonably can to maintain a good "working relationship".
- nadermx 2y ago
  He never admitted to the attempted murder. So it's not a leap to assume that might of been tainted
  - mplewis 2y ago
    Tainted how?
  - seanw444 2y ago
    But the feds would never attempt shading means of solving a problem that they're being heavily pressured to solve in a timely manner! Don't be a hecking conspiracy theorist.
- jMyles 2y ago
  > openly tried to assassinate a competitor. Unmitigated nonsense. The evidence that he was involved in this is somewhere between unreliable and nonexistent, and he (and the supposed victim) have disputed it since day one. WTF do you mean "openly"?
  - cbg0 2y ago
    Is this between unreliable and non-existent ? - Log files found on Ulbricht's laptop with entries corresponding to the murder-for-hire events - Bitcoin transaction records showing payments - Messages between DPR and vendors/users about the situations The court found this evidence admissible as: - Direct evidence of the charged offenses - Proof of Ulbricht's role as site administrator - Evidence of Ulbricht's identity as DPR - Demonstration of his willingness to use violence to protect the criminal enterprise The court determined that while prejudicial, the probative value of this evidence outweighed any unfair prejudice, particularly since the government would stipulate no murders actually occurred. The above is summarized from https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-ulbricht-10 https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-ulbricht-10
    - 39x9 2y ago
      Except the government blocked a codefendant from testifying that Ross wasn't the current DPR. The person who set up the fake murder was a Secret Service agent who went to federal prison. The target, Curtis Green, said the alleged diary was suspect. The court also kept out the role of the two convicted federal agents, not to mention 8+ other federal employees who committed crimes or unethical behavior. And an indictment is not proof that the allegations are real or not manipulated. US Attorneys are a deeply amoral group, they don't care about truth or justice, just winning at any cost.
      - cbg0 2y ago
        > Except the government blocked a codefendant from testifying that Ross wasn't the current DPR. What is this based on? Can't find this on Google. Also, which fake murder are you talking about? There were 6 alleged murder-for-hire solicitations.
- plsbenice34 2y ago
  Many people, including myself, do not believe that he really did any of the activity related to the assassination attempts. Demonstrably corrupt law enforcement agents had the opportunity to do it all themselves and it would be typical behaviour for those agencies. He is (and was) politically passionate about non-violence and it would go against everything he stood for. I cannot believe he would do it. What do you mean "openly"?
  - mikeyouse 2y ago
    He wrote about them extensively in his journals - journals he could have disclaimed if they were faked but were obviously not.
    - plsbenice34 2y ago
      I can't say anything about these journals because I cant even remember anything about them. It certainly isn't obvious to me, since the case is incredibly complex and objectively fraught with corruption
VWWHFSfQ 2y ago
Ross Ulbricht was not a good person. Full stop. He organized and operated a global criminal drug ring and conspired to have people killed. The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar is that DPR was running his drug business in the 2010s instead of the 1980s.
- dogmatism 2y ago
  wait what? Escobar was responsible for conservatively 4,000 people killed, some at his own hand DPR conspired but didn't actually directly kill anyone Not saying DPR was a good person, but a little perspective is in order
  - adastra22 2y ago
    He did order (and pay for) at least one murder. It just happens that both the victim and the would-be hit man were both informants so they staged the murder. Ross’ argument is that he knew it was fake, but that makes no sense in context. It was right that they dropped the charge because it was quite obviously entrapment. But none of it reflects well on Ross Ulbricht’s character.
    - echoangle 2y ago
      There’s still a difference between ordering a hit and killing 4000 people, some of them yourself.
      - adastra22 2y ago
        A difference in scale. I really don't see a meaningful moral difference between murder for hire and doing it yourself.
        echoangle 2y ago
        Ok, but the difference between 4 and 4000 murders is still not insignificant in my opinion.
potato3732842 2y ago
I assume that the feds corruption is as bad as it is in every other high profile case case involving fed informants and politically charged topics. Randy Weaver, all the muslims they radicalized and then goaded into doing terrorist things post 9/11, the Michigan Fednapping. It seems like every time these people have a chance to entrap someone they do, but they do it in a "haha, jokes on you we run the system so while this probably would be entrapment if some beat cops did it the court won't find it that way" sort of way. They just can't touch anything without getting it dirty this way and the fact that that is a 30yr pattern at this point depending on how you count speaks volumes IMO. While I'm sure they can solve an interstate murder or interstate fraud or whatever just fine I just don't trust them to handle these sorts of cases. It seems like all of these people they wind up charging probably are questionable people who wanted to do the thing and probably did some other lesser things but they probably would have given up on the big thing if there wasn't a federal agency running around doing all the "the informant says the guy is lamenting not having explosives, quick someone get him some explosives" things in the background.
- GolfPopper 2y ago
  It took a bit of tracking down, but I finally found an apparently egregious example of this sort of thing I had vaguely remembered: Iraqi citizen and legal US resident Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab was sentenced last February to 14 years in prison for his role in an alleged plot to murder George W. Bush, and his involvement in smuggling terrorists into the United States. [1] But his sentencing (after his guilty plea) contains an interesting caveat: lifetime supervised release. Why is a terrorist and would-be assassin of a former President getting lifetime supervised release? None of the media coverage of the case, going back years, makes that clear. However, a footnote in the original criminal complaint against[2] him offers a likely explanation: "In or around the end of March 2022, United States immigration officials conducted an asylum interview with SHIHAB. After the interview was conducted United States immigration officials advised the FBI that SHIHAB may have information regarding an ISIS member that was recently smuggled into the United States." With a little reading between the lines of the criminal complaint, a very different story emerges: Shihab never dealt with any terrorists. He was a paid middleman between two government informants or agents pretending to be terrorists. He took their money, played along, and ratted them out to INS during an asylum interview. After that, once they realized the jig was up, the FBI arrested and charged him at its earliest opportunity - for the plot they had created and paid him to participate in, and which he in turn had informed the government about. 1. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/columbus-man-sentenced-more-14-years-prison-attempting-support-terrorist-plot-murder https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/columbus-man-sentenced-... 2. https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/06/Shihab-complaint.pdf https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/06/Shihab-complaint.pd...
lettergram 2y ago
As part of the FBI conviction they were accused of tampering user logs and taking over accounts. So… literally none of it can be used as evidence imo.
trhway 2y ago
>we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this the corruption what we do know about already tainted the case to the point that it should have been thrown out. I don't care about Ulbricht, and whether he is guilty of all or some of the charges or innocent. What bothers me in this case is that the government can get away and in particular can get its way in court even with such severe criminal behavior by the government. Rare case when i agree with Trump: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening." Trump even personally called Ulbricht mother. I start to wonder whether i have been all that time in blind denial about Trump.
- wizzwizz4 2y ago
  > A heartbreaking story is currently unfolding that’s sure to have devastating ramifications for years to come. Just moments ago, without any warning, the worst person you know just made a great point. https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/ https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno... You shouldn't necessarily change your negative opinion of someone, just because they're right about something. To invoke Godwin's law: Adolf Hitler was a staunch opponent of smoking, in a time when many Allied cultures thought smoking was great, but that doesn't mean you're wrong about him.
  - trhway 2y ago
    imagine if your physical theory of Universe works perfectly for the Universe at all scales, all times, all places except for one small star whose behavior contradicts your theory - that means that your theory at least requires an adjustment and at worst it may be total thrash. Your smoking example doesn't have such contradiction - whether he was anti- or pro-smoker is orthogonal to the rest of the story. On the other hand Trump showing empathy and correcting gross injustice stemming from the gross government corruption doesn't fit well into my perception of Trump and thus seriously challenges it.

What has always sat odd with me regarding this, is we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this. They stole, so it's not hard to imagine they planted evidence too.

mplewis 2y ago

What evidence would you have even needed to plant? He ran the largest internet drug market and openly tried to assassinate a competitor.

TheAmazingRace 2y ago
Agreed. He willingly engaged with the alleged hitman (which ended up being the FBI contact). He didn't need to do anything or not have the thought to murder others cross his mind.
- andirk 2y ago
  Allegedly. The 2 rules of his Fight Club were no underage sex stuff and no physical harm. That hitman claim was not part of his charges or sentencing. The heavy sentencing was to like "send a message" the judge said.
  - TheAmazingRace 2y ago
    They weren't part of his sentencing because a different court entirely was pursuing the hit for hire attempt charge, but because another court in NY got the book thrown at him for running the site, they decided to drop it because it didn't seem necessary anymore. In hindsight, the prosecution probably wished they didn't do that, since they are said to have had overwhelming evidence and proof, and there is even a Wired article about chat logs pertaining to DPR seeking services, but those are the breaks! If you don't do your due diligence, criminals can be let off on a technicality too!
    - andirk 2y ago
      I haven't looked into the case(s) for years, but prosecutors don't often just drop charges because other charges were found guilty. People get charged even after life sentences have been handed down.
      - TheAmazingRace 2y ago
        Perhaps. I can't think of why they ultimately decided not to move forward with it, but here we are.
        buckle8017 2y ago
        They dropped the murder for hire charges because discovery would have.. discovered the FBI doing very very bad things.
        TheAmazingRace 2y ago
        I doubt that's the reason. It could simply be bandwidth reasons as another commenter in the thread implied.
        WrongAssumption 2y ago
        Prosecutors do not work for the FBI, and the FBI has no say in who gets prosecuted nor for which charges.
        echoangle 2y ago
        And you don’t think the prosecutors consider the interests of the FBI when deciding what to prosecute? In cases where they want to use FBI evidence and probably want ongoing cooperation of the FBI for future cases?
        lupusreal 2y ago
        Prosecutors work with, not for, law enforcement and generally do what they reasonably can to maintain a good "working relationship".
nadermx 2y ago
He never admitted to the attempted murder. So it's not a leap to assume that might of been tainted
- mplewis 2y ago
  Tainted how?
- seanw444 2y ago
  But the feds would never attempt shading means of solving a problem that they're being heavily pressured to solve in a timely manner! Don't be a hecking conspiracy theorist.
jMyles 2y ago
> openly tried to assassinate a competitor. Unmitigated nonsense. The evidence that he was involved in this is somewhere between unreliable and nonexistent, and he (and the supposed victim) have disputed it since day one. WTF do you mean "openly"?
- cbg0 2y ago
  Is this between unreliable and non-existent ? - Log files found on Ulbricht's laptop with entries corresponding to the murder-for-hire events - Bitcoin transaction records showing payments - Messages between DPR and vendors/users about the situations The court found this evidence admissible as: - Direct evidence of the charged offenses - Proof of Ulbricht's role as site administrator - Evidence of Ulbricht's identity as DPR - Demonstration of his willingness to use violence to protect the criminal enterprise The court determined that while prejudicial, the probative value of this evidence outweighed any unfair prejudice, particularly since the government would stipulate no murders actually occurred. The above is summarized from https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-ulbricht-10 https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-ulbricht-10
  - 39x9 2y ago
    Except the government blocked a codefendant from testifying that Ross wasn't the current DPR. The person who set up the fake murder was a Secret Service agent who went to federal prison. The target, Curtis Green, said the alleged diary was suspect. The court also kept out the role of the two convicted federal agents, not to mention 8+ other federal employees who committed crimes or unethical behavior. And an indictment is not proof that the allegations are real or not manipulated. US Attorneys are a deeply amoral group, they don't care about truth or justice, just winning at any cost.
    - cbg0 2y ago
      > Except the government blocked a codefendant from testifying that Ross wasn't the current DPR. What is this based on? Can't find this on Google. Also, which fake murder are you talking about? There were 6 alleged murder-for-hire solicitations.
plsbenice34 2y ago
Many people, including myself, do not believe that he really did any of the activity related to the assassination attempts. Demonstrably corrupt law enforcement agents had the opportunity to do it all themselves and it would be typical behaviour for those agencies. He is (and was) politically passionate about non-violence and it would go against everything he stood for. I cannot believe he would do it. What do you mean "openly"?
- mikeyouse 2y ago
  He wrote about them extensively in his journals - journals he could have disclaimed if they were faked but were obviously not.
  - plsbenice34 2y ago
    I can't say anything about these journals because I cant even remember anything about them. It certainly isn't obvious to me, since the case is incredibly complex and objectively fraught with corruption

VWWHFSfQ 2y ago

Ross Ulbricht was not a good person. Full stop. He organized and operated a global criminal drug ring and conspired to have people killed. The only difference between DPR and Pabla Escobar is that DPR was running his drug business in the 2010s instead of the 1980s.

dogmatism 2y ago
wait what? Escobar was responsible for conservatively 4,000 people killed, some at his own hand DPR conspired but didn't actually directly kill anyone Not saying DPR was a good person, but a little perspective is in order
- adastra22 2y ago
  He did order (and pay for) at least one murder. It just happens that both the victim and the would-be hit man were both informants so they staged the murder. Ross’ argument is that he knew it was fake, but that makes no sense in context. It was right that they dropped the charge because it was quite obviously entrapment. But none of it reflects well on Ross Ulbricht’s character.
  - echoangle 2y ago
    There’s still a difference between ordering a hit and killing 4000 people, some of them yourself.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      A difference in scale. I really don't see a meaningful moral difference between murder for hire and doing it yourself.
      - echoangle 2y ago
        Ok, but the difference between 4 and 4000 murders is still not insignificant in my opinion.

potato3732842 2y ago

I assume that the feds corruption is as bad as it is in every other high profile case case involving fed informants and politically charged topics. Randy Weaver, all the muslims they radicalized and then goaded into doing terrorist things post 9/11, the Michigan Fednapping. It seems like every time these people have a chance to entrap someone they do, but they do it in a "haha, jokes on you we run the system so while this probably would be entrapment if some beat cops did it the court won't find it that way" sort of way. They just can't touch anything without getting it dirty this way and the fact that that is a 30yr pattern at this point depending on how you count speaks volumes IMO. While I'm sure they can solve an interstate murder or interstate fraud or whatever just fine I just don't trust them to handle these sorts of cases. It seems like all of these people they wind up charging probably are questionable people who wanted to do the thing and probably did some other lesser things but they probably would have given up on the big thing if there wasn't a federal agency running around doing all the "the informant says the guy is lamenting not having explosives, quick someone get him some explosives" things in the background.

GolfPopper 2y ago
It took a bit of tracking down, but I finally found an apparently egregious example of this sort of thing I had vaguely remembered: Iraqi citizen and legal US resident Shihab Ahmed Shihab Shihab was sentenced last February to 14 years in prison for his role in an alleged plot to murder George W. Bush, and his involvement in smuggling terrorists into the United States. [1] But his sentencing (after his guilty plea) contains an interesting caveat: lifetime supervised release. Why is a terrorist and would-be assassin of a former President getting lifetime supervised release? None of the media coverage of the case, going back years, makes that clear. However, a footnote in the original criminal complaint against[2] him offers a likely explanation: "In or around the end of March 2022, United States immigration officials conducted an asylum interview with SHIHAB. After the interview was conducted United States immigration officials advised the FBI that SHIHAB may have information regarding an ISIS member that was recently smuggled into the United States." With a little reading between the lines of the criminal complaint, a very different story emerges: Shihab never dealt with any terrorists. He was a paid middleman between two government informants or agents pretending to be terrorists. He took their money, played along, and ratted them out to INS during an asylum interview. After that, once they realized the jig was up, the FBI arrested and charged him at its earliest opportunity - for the plot they had created and paid him to participate in, and which he in turn had informed the government about. 1. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/columbus-man-sentenced-more-14-years-prison-attempting-support-terrorist-plot-murder https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdoh/pr/columbus-man-sentenced-... 2. https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/06/Shihab-complaint.pdf https://truthout.org/app/uploads/2022/06/Shihab-complaint.pd...

lettergram 2y ago

As part of the FBI conviction they were accused of tampering user logs and taking over accounts. So… literally none of it can be used as evidence imo.

trhway 2y ago

>we don't truly know the extent of the fbi's corruption in this the corruption what we do know about already tainted the case to the point that it should have been thrown out. I don't care about Ulbricht, and whether he is guilty of all or some of the charges or innocent. What bothers me in this case is that the government can get away and in particular can get its way in court even with such severe criminal behavior by the government. Rare case when i agree with Trump: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e0jve875o "The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me," Trump said in his post online on Tuesday evening." Trump even personally called Ulbricht mother. I start to wonder whether i have been all that time in blind denial about Trump.

wizzwizz4 2y ago
> A heartbreaking story is currently unfolding that’s sure to have devastating ramifications for years to come. Just moments ago, without any warning, the worst person you know just made a great point. https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-know-just-made-a-gr-1825121606/ https://clickhole.com/heartbreaking-the-worst-person-you-kno... You shouldn't necessarily change your negative opinion of someone, just because they're right about something. To invoke Godwin's law: Adolf Hitler was a staunch opponent of smoking, in a time when many Allied cultures thought smoking was great, but that doesn't mean you're wrong about him.
- trhway 2y ago
  imagine if your physical theory of Universe works perfectly for the Universe at all scales, all times, all places except for one small star whose behavior contradicts your theory - that means that your theory at least requires an adjustment and at worst it may be total thrash. Your smoking example doesn't have such contradiction - whether he was anti- or pro-smoker is orthogonal to the rest of the story. On the other hand Trump showing empathy and correcting gross injustice stemming from the gross government corruption doesn't fit well into my perception of Trump and thus seriously challenges it.