5 ms·

>Ulbricht did not enter a plea. But his public defender,... Looks like the Federales did seize his assets. He may be about to have a bad time.

parshap 13y ago
Maybe he can find a firm that takes bitcons.
- jff 13y ago
  I think if the lawyer then tried to sell off his fee in bitcoins in order to get some real money, he'd crash the market. Especially since you can't use bitcoins to buy drugs anymore.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - pizza 13y ago
    SR was just the most popular marketplace, not the only one.
  - pdq 13y ago
    You are woefully mistaken. Shutting down the Silk Road did not shut down all online drug exchange via bitcoins nor Mt. Gox. The demand is still there and as quickly as SR goes down, many more will pop up to take their place. Also selling 20k bitcoins over a multi week period would prevent any spike or crash in price. That's a tiny fraction of the daily coins traded.
noir_lord 13y ago
You can't use the proceeds of crime to fund your defense. If he can't show income then he gets a public defender. Also this is a federal defender and my understanding (I'm a Brit watching from afar) is they are like our QC's (Queens Counsel - essentially very good and experienced legal professionals) rather than the stereotypical "plead to everything and go to lunch" public defenders.
- nextstep 13y ago
  Public defenders range from quite good to incompetent, but almost all of them are over-worked because of the large number of things made illegal in our bloated legal system. So, many public defenders encourage their clients to plea guilty for crimes they did not commit. Sadly this happens far too often in the US. HBO did a documentary about this recently: www.hbo.com/documentaries/gideons-army
- MichaelGG 13y ago
  >You can't use the proceeds of crime to fund your defense. Alleged crime. I thought the US had some presumption of innocence or something.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    The assets you presume him to have are the proceeds of a massive online narcotics market. Or is there some other source of income you're saying were seized?
    - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
      You presume the assets to be the proceeds of a massive online narcotics market.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        I do, because the narcotics market is the only source of assets that anyone has mentioned in conjunction with this person.
        fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        If his Forbes interview is to be believed, he apparently had accumulated enough BTC to buy out the original creator of SR. If not, then it still isn't a stretch to believe that a person whose involvement with Bitcoin goes back years, has accumulated a few BTC through mining, trading, or some other activity. Nor is it impossible for any other person who could be mistakenly identified as connected to SR to have accumulated a large amount of BTC through legal means.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
geetee 13y ago
More likely simply hasn't assembled a legal team yet. I'm going to guess he wasn't keeping one on retainer.
- mikeryan 13y ago
  Better call Saul.
jessaustin 13y ago
Alternatively, he might not have much money for his defense, because he's not actually a drug kingpin!
rthomas6 13y ago
Well, I somehow doubt that attorneys take payment in bitcoins, so they didn't have to find or seize the bitcoins. People forget that they're all publicly stored in the blockchain, so everyone would have a reasonable suspicion which bitcoin addresses are used for Silk Road. If Mr. Ulbricht decided to liquidate some of those assets into a bank account, even if he used one of those "launderer" services, it would be clear that a certain amount left that bitcoin address, and somehow that exact amount in dollars ended up in the account. Not exactly good for defending your innocence.
- aianus 13y ago
  Why wouldn't you take payment in bitcoins if you were an attorney with a potential client with $80 million of them? Maybe you charge them an extra few $100k, but you take the business. As for everyone having a reasonable suspicion which bitcoin addresses are used for silk road, I would assume Silk Road taint is rather like cocaine on US cash; it's everywhere.

parshap 13y ago

Maybe he can find a firm that takes bitcons.

jff 13y ago
I think if the lawyer then tried to sell off his fee in bitcoins in order to get some real money, he'd crash the market. Especially since you can't use bitcoins to buy drugs anymore.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- pizza 13y ago
  SR was just the most popular marketplace, not the only one.
- pdq 13y ago
  You are woefully mistaken. Shutting down the Silk Road did not shut down all online drug exchange via bitcoins nor Mt. Gox. The demand is still there and as quickly as SR goes down, many more will pop up to take their place. Also selling 20k bitcoins over a multi week period would prevent any spike or crash in price. That's a tiny fraction of the daily coins traded.

noir_lord 13y ago

You can't use the proceeds of crime to fund your defense. If he can't show income then he gets a public defender. Also this is a federal defender and my understanding (I'm a Brit watching from afar) is they are like our QC's (Queens Counsel - essentially very good and experienced legal professionals) rather than the stereotypical "plead to everything and go to lunch" public defenders.

nextstep 13y ago
Public defenders range from quite good to incompetent, but almost all of them are over-worked because of the large number of things made illegal in our bloated legal system. So, many public defenders encourage their clients to plea guilty for crimes they did not commit. Sadly this happens far too often in the US. HBO did a documentary about this recently: www.hbo.com/documentaries/gideons-army
MichaelGG 13y ago
>You can't use the proceeds of crime to fund your defense. Alleged crime. I thought the US had some presumption of innocence or something.
- tptacek 13y ago
  The assets you presume him to have are the proceeds of a massive online narcotics market. Or is there some other source of income you're saying were seized?
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    You presume the assets to be the proceeds of a massive online narcotics market.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      I do, because the narcotics market is the only source of assets that anyone has mentioned in conjunction with this person.
      - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
        If his Forbes interview is to be believed, he apparently had accumulated enough BTC to buy out the original creator of SR. If not, then it still isn't a stretch to believe that a person whose involvement with Bitcoin goes back years, has accumulated a few BTC through mining, trading, or some other activity. Nor is it impossible for any other person who could be mistakenly identified as connected to SR to have accumulated a large amount of BTC through legal means.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

geetee 13y ago

More likely simply hasn't assembled a legal team yet. I'm going to guess he wasn't keeping one on retainer.

mikeryan 13y ago
Better call Saul.

jessaustin 13y ago

Alternatively, he might not have much money for his defense, because he's not actually a drug kingpin!

rthomas6 13y ago

Well, I somehow doubt that attorneys take payment in bitcoins, so they didn't have to find or seize the bitcoins. People forget that they're all publicly stored in the blockchain, so everyone would have a reasonable suspicion which bitcoin addresses are used for Silk Road. If Mr. Ulbricht decided to liquidate some of those assets into a bank account, even if he used one of those "launderer" services, it would be clear that a certain amount left that bitcoin address, and somehow that exact amount in dollars ended up in the account. Not exactly good for defending your innocence.

aianus 13y ago
Why wouldn't you take payment in bitcoins if you were an attorney with a potential client with $80 million of them? Maybe you charge them an extra few $100k, but you take the business. As for everyone having a reasonable suspicion which bitcoin addresses are used for silk road, I would assume Silk Road taint is rather like cocaine on US cash; it's everywhere.