zlacker

Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

edit: this is something that vice news [0] reported that is apparently wrong.

> But despite these setbacks, Ulbricht was ultimately convicted in February on a raft of charges, including drug trafficking, computer hacking, money laundering, and hiring assassins to take out members of Silk Road.

[0]: https://news.vice.com/article/ross-ulbricht-convicted-master...

>>collin+(OP)
Do we actually have any proof of that or is it just something that the media is feeding us?

>>collin+(OP)
No, he wasn't. He was never even charged with that; the story of one attempt to hire a hitman was admitted into the trial as evidence that he was running the Silk Road and knew what he was doing, but that was never one of the actual charges against him.

>>collin+(OP)
Actually not yet convicted of hiring a hitman. There is another trial for that.

Apparently his first attempt he hired an fbi agent, posing as a hit man and his second attempt seems to have been a con-job...

He tried though. Apparently the fbi agent sent fake photos as proof.

Article from Ars Comments. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-09/us-says-si...

>>collin+(OP)
He was not.

He was convicted of the following-

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

EDIT. Neat. -3 points for posting nothing but factual information. Cool. I'll leave you all to it, then.

>>amyjes+c
The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual components of one of the charges he faced.

Ulbricht's argument to the effect that he wasn't properly charged with the murder-for-hire scheme was addressed in detail by the court:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...

>>tptace+q
That court opinion describes a list of alleged chats that the Feds planned to introduce as evidence. It does not say the court accepted that evidence as true in the form of a finding of fact. (Put another way, that document does not say what you says it does, and we all know there are two sides to every story.)

It seems to me that if the Feds were confident about their murder-for-hire claim, they would have charged Ulbricht accordingly. That they chose not to do so indicates they were less than confident, and we should draw our conclusions accordingly.

For all I know he may well have been involved in murder for hire; I haven't paid close enough attention to the case to have an opinion. But I've followed too many hacker cases to accept unrebutted DOJ allegations as gospel truth.

>>collin+(OP)
> Ulbricht was also convicted of hiring a hitman.

This is not quite true. While he was not charged in this trial with the most obvious offense that would flow from that (e.g., attempted murder, etc.), this was specifically charged as one of the overt acts of one of the conspiracy charges he was convicted of. But it wasn't the only overt act charged, and the guilty verdict doesn't include a finding on the individual overt acts charged separately. So, its not accurate to say he was convicted of hiring a hitman.

>>tptace+q
> The prosecution sentencing memo rebuts this argument, pointing out that Ulbricht's attempts to procure murder for hire were explicit factual components of one of the charges he faced.

The prosecution memo does not rebut this argument, it rebuts instead the clearly different but related argument that the murder-for-hire scheme was uncharged conduct which could therefore not be considered in sentencing. It was -- as they correctly point out -- charged, as it was one of the overt acts specifically laid out in the Count One narcotics trafficking conspiracy charge.

It is nevertheless inaccurate to say he was convicted of hiring a hitman, since a conspiracy conviction requires (as far as overt acts go) only a finding that the defendant committed at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy, there were several overt acts charged in that count, and the verdict form did not direct the jury to return separate findings of fact on each charged overt act.

>>declan+q2
The murder-for-hire scheme was "Overt Act" (b) for Count 1 of his "Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy" charge.

Capone went away for tax evasion, right?

>>dragon+s3
I'm certainly not saying he was convicted of hiring a hit man. He was convicted of a conspiracy to traffic narcotics, one overt act of which was the attempt to procure a murder for hire.

The argument I'm challenging is the notion that the factual claim of Ulbricht's attempt to hire a hitman wasn't subjected to scrutiny during the trial. It was a specifically introduced factual claim, which Ulbricht's counsel was required to rebut.

>>iM8t+4
If by "proof" you mean "evidence", there are journal entries from DPR's laptop describing the attempted killings, records of messages between him and the would-be killer, and Bitcoin transaction records of the sizable payments involved. It certainly wasn't invented by the media.

>>waterl+o
> Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics

> Distribution/Aiding and Abetting the Distribution of Narcotics by Means of the Internet

Good ol' US justice system: Where you get charged with the same crime twice so they can double the sentence.