Silk Road founder convicted on all charges
Posted by: Jon Ben-Mayor on 02/04/2015 11:19 AM
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Ross Ulbricht was found guilty of all charges leveled against him by the US government on this landmark case.
maximum sentence of life in prison.
There will be an appeal to this verdict from Ulbricht as he has maintained throughout the proceedings that he was set up as a patsy and the real DPR is still out there. That in combination with allegations of overstepping FBI agents and the multitude of defense evidence allowed to be suppressed by the presiding judge will undoubtedly be at the center of his appeal.
According to Bloomberg Business, prosecutors claimed Ulbricht ran the $1.2 billion empire from 2011 to 2013, armed only with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. When he was arrested, his computer was filled with evidence showing he conceived Silk Road, ran the website and even tried to arrange the murder of five people who threatened the anonymity of buyers and sellers.
He claimed he was set up as a “fall guy” by Mark Karpeles, the former head of the bankrupt Mt. Gox Co. bitcoin exchange, or by someone else who was the real Dread Pirate Roberts. A six-man, six-woman jury in Manhattan federal court rejected Ulbricht’s claim that he only ran Silk Road for a few months. The jury completed deliberations and returned the verdict late afternoon today.
Statement of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on the conviction of Ross William Ulbricht:
"As a unanimous jury has found, Ross William Ulbricht operated Silk Road – a clandestine global marketplace that offered buyers and sellers of illegal goods and services a promise of anonymity. Ulbricht built this black market bazaar to exploit the dark web and the digital currency Bitcoin to allow users to conduct illegal business beyond the reach of law enforcement. Ulbricht’s arrest and conviction – and our seizure of millions of dollars of Silk Road Bitcoins – should send a clear message to anyone else attempting to operate an online criminal enterprise. The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution."
maximum sentence of life in prison.There will be an appeal to this verdict from Ulbricht as he has maintained throughout the proceedings that he was set up as a patsy and the real DPR is still out there. That in combination with allegations of overstepping FBI agents and the multitude of defense evidence allowed to be suppressed by the presiding judge will undoubtedly be at the center of his appeal.
According to Bloomberg Business, prosecutors claimed Ulbricht ran the $1.2 billion empire from 2011 to 2013, armed only with a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection. When he was arrested, his computer was filled with evidence showing he conceived Silk Road, ran the website and even tried to arrange the murder of five people who threatened the anonymity of buyers and sellers.
He claimed he was set up as a “fall guy” by Mark Karpeles, the former head of the bankrupt Mt. Gox Co. bitcoin exchange, or by someone else who was the real Dread Pirate Roberts. A six-man, six-woman jury in Manhattan federal court rejected Ulbricht’s claim that he only ran Silk Road for a few months. The jury completed deliberations and returned the verdict late afternoon today.
Statement of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on the conviction of Ross William Ulbricht:
"As a unanimous jury has found, Ross William Ulbricht operated Silk Road – a clandestine global marketplace that offered buyers and sellers of illegal goods and services a promise of anonymity. Ulbricht built this black market bazaar to exploit the dark web and the digital currency Bitcoin to allow users to conduct illegal business beyond the reach of law enforcement. Ulbricht’s arrest and conviction – and our seizure of millions of dollars of Silk Road Bitcoins – should send a clear message to anyone else attempting to operate an online criminal enterprise. The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution."
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