Jury Wastes No Time In Finding Ross Ulbricht Guilty On All Counts
from the going-away-for-a-long-time dept
If you've been following the Ross Ulbricht trial, this won't come as much of a surprise, but Ulbricht has been found guilty of all the charges related to creating, running and using the Silk Road dark marketplace:- Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics
- Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet
- Conspiracy to Distribute Narcotics
- Continuing Criminal Enterprise
- Conspiracy to Commit or Aid and Abet Computer Hacking
- Conspiracy to Traffic in Fraudulent Identity Documents
- Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering
Either way, this kind of result was almost a foregone conclusion. In a criminal case, the defense almost always wins if it gets to trial. Also, even for the more nuanced legal arguments -- or Ulbricht's attorney's chosen path of trying to toss out a bunch of alternate scenarios to sow "reasonable doubt" in the jury -- the simple nature of the fact that many people used Silk Road to buy and sell illegal drugs was always going to cloud the overall case against Ulbricht.
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Filed Under: dark market, guilty, ross ulbricht, silk road
Companies: silk road
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Oh, me too. :-)
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But it's targeting the wrong actions. If you're breaking the law, that law is broken no matter what communications channel was used. So prosecute for the actual crime, not for using "x" communications channel in the course of committing the crime.
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Also "continuing criminal enterprise". That's somehow separate from each of the individual criminal acts that make up that continuing criminal enterprise.
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The article here says there is some sort of valid complaint about how the court limited his defenses, but fails to mention that the court repeatedly asked for them to make the arguments. It was the defense attorneys who failed to do so. They failed to file the proper notice, failed to do so in a timely manner, they didn't make an ownership claim to the server in Iceland and so had no standing for a request to have that evidence tossed out (and the judge repeatedly asked for that because it seemed to be an obvious move for the defense).
She points out repeatedly how and why she needs certain information, and that tossing it into the ring on the last day of the trial is simply not permitted.
Her ruling in just one part is here:
http://ia600603.us.archive.org/21/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824/gov.uscourts.nysd.422824.173.0 .pdf
The defense made various tactical decisions which backfired on them later on.
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Juries conclude guilt or innocence based on the cases presented to them, so how well the case is developed and presented obviously matters.
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That is all that should matter, but the question is what process do you use to determine if someone is guilty or innocent? In the US, it's an adversarial process. There are pluses and minuses to this, and one of the minuses is that it means the actual actual outcome of a case is heavily dependent on which side has the better lawyers and which side has the most money.
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Re: Conspiracy in the USA
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Conspiracy charges
From a friend of mine, a former criminal defense attorney:
"
1. Conspiracy... "lets go drive out in my car and get some drugs."
2. Solicitation... "Can you get me some drugs?"
3. Facilitation..."Here, I'll help you package those drugs.
4. Accessory... "Here's some money, now go buy some drugs.
5. Obstruction... "Shit, its the cops, I'll go flush these drugs."
"
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Re: Conspiracy charges
These days it seems like you could get convicted for conspiracy for being in the room while two other people are talking about maybe getting some drugs.
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His goose was cooked the minute his attorney decided on using the Chewbacca Defense.
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But was he using that nom de guerre *at the time the crimes charged were committed*?
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Yes, god forbid someone that runs a website be held accountable for aiding and abetting illegal acts. Why, that would just be crazy!
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Running a website that happens to let its users commit crimes is very easy if users can post unfiltered content. If the site operators knew, or reasonably should have known, that the users were committing crimes and the site operator reasonably could have prevented those crimes, then on a case-by-case basis, liability could be considered. That second qualifier is critical, because otherwise any site that has more traffic than can be policed by its operators is at-risk of becoming an accomplice if criminals start using it as a message exchange site.
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http://content.usatoday.com/communities/technologylive/post/2010/08/attorneys-general-ta rget-craigslist/1#.VNLYcMbY3UQ
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/retail/2009-12-18-coun terfeit_CV_N.htm
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/10/07/airbnb-hit-with-subpoena-from-n-y-attorney-ge neral/
Because websites should be allowed to do whatever they want, right? It's not like the internet is ubiquitous or something, and obliged to follow laws.
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No, people should be held accountable for their actions, and only for their actions (not someone else's).
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It is almost like saying that car manufacturers must monitor all their cars and report people for speeding and the police do not have any reason to monitor or charge people for speeding and charge the manufacturer every time someone is found guilty of a crime using their car.
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I'm sure many sites would love to be able to offload the task of personally checking thousands of posts, pictures, and hours of video on a daily basis to someone else, safe in the knowledge that if something does slip through, it will be the other guys(your company in this case), who will be on the hook for allowing it to happen.
Or we could just continue to put the liability on the people actually responsible, the one posting the content, and realize that requiring a site or service provider to personally check everything posted on their site/service would be utterly insane, and completely kill off sites that allow user submitted content, which, while great for the parasites that push the older crap, and have to compete with 'amateur' stuff, would be a huge loss for everyone else.
By all means, charge him for running a site pretty much specifically designed to sell illegal drugs, but don't try claim that he should be personally held accountable for what others have done, or that sites should be held accountable for what their users do unless it is proven that they knew that specific illegal actions were occurring, had the power to stop said illegal actions, and chose not to.
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Quite frankly, I think the jury got it right.
As to the charges as such, he was guilty on all counts. Safe harbour requires the owners to take appropriate steps if they become aware of illegal activity. Advising your customers in the best ways to conduct illegal activity is the opposite of appropriate.
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Continuing Criminal Enterprise
No parole allowed, by law. (21 USC 848)
There's a very good chance Ulbricht will be treated as a big kingpin and get life.
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Nooooo!!!!
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His actions + their actions = conspiracy.
There is nothing the least bit confusing here. Not even a little bit.
Plus we have the spectacle of an avowed Libertarian who "bravely made it his life's work to take a stand against the government sanctioned violence (or as they like to say 'goobmint' of taxation caught red handed hiring an assassin to kill somehow who pissed him off by attempting to color outside the lines Ulbrict decided were the "just" boundaries for human relations, those boundaries being something like:
illegal drugs to minors-OK !
kiddie porn-OK !
murder for hire-OK !
blackmail-OK !
blackmailing Ulbricht NOT OK !
Just a very typical Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Koch brothers, government hating, commons destroying, amphetamine gulping, coke snorting, whoring, "John Galt super man", principled freedom fighter is you ask me.
Fucking scum. May he rot in jail.
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