According to your link, "if a person is induced to commit a crime by a private citizen, he cannot use the entrapment defense". Unsurprisingly, in the complaint

According to your link, "if a person is induced to commit a crime by a private citizen, he cannot use the entrapment defense". Unsurprisingly, in the complaint there is no suggestion that a law enforcement officer was behind the threats to expose silk road accounts, such threats therefore appear to be from a private citizen, and not subject to the entrapment defense. Further, simply agreeing to pay to have someone killed (whether they are eventually killed or not) is sufficient to be found guilty of conspiracy to murder, and significant jail time. However, while we don't know who issued those threats, we do know that (apparently) no one was harmed as a result of the contracted "hit" being executed, despite the defendant receiving a picture of an apparent execution. It is the discrepancy between the apparent killing and the lack of a body that raises my suspicion that there was no actual threat and no actual killing. Edit: It occurred to me that investigators could set-up such a "sting" not specifically to entrap the defendant into a murder charge, but to provide a clear and traceable link between him and a higher-level involvement in the running of silk road, which was manifestly illegal.