February 5, 2015 5:17 pm
The jury took fewer than four hours to convict Ross Ulbricht, the creator of Silk Road, of running a multimillion-dollar drug-trafficking operation from his laptop computer.
Ulbricht, 30, was convicted on all seven counts related to the trafficking and faces 20 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in May.
ON THIS TOPIC
- Ulbricht found guilty over Silk Road drugs site
- Ulbricht declines to testify over Silk Road
- Dread Pirate accused of ‘execution’ chat
- Silk Road led agents to several suspects
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The trial thrust into the spotlight the issues of internet security and the so-called dark web of hidden websites on browsers that anonymise traffic. It also explored the operations of bitcoin, the virtual currency, that was favoured on Silk Road.
The case also tested the boundaries of applying laws normally associated with capturing drug dealers selling on street corners to the internet.
“The legacy of Silk Road,” SerrinTurner, the prosecutor, told the jury, was that it “lowered the barriers of drug dealers to reach customers” more than could ever be reached on the street.
Criticism came from libertarian groups, some of whom believed the government was criminalising the activities of anyone who operated a website. Several supporters of Ulbricht — some of whom said they did not personally know him — attended parts of the trial to protest against the government’s reach. One of his supporters in the courtroom shouted after the verdict: “Ross is a hero.”
The trial had the intrigue of a high-stakes thriller. Federal agents led the jury into their investigation as they intercepted drugs in vacuum-sealed packets at a Chicago airport and logged in to computers to assume the identity of a Silk Road employee.
A college classmate testified about when he learnt Ulbricht had created Silk Road, while a federal agent described confronting Ulbricht at his San Francisco apartment just weeks before his arrest with nine counterfeit driver’s licences.
The central question for the jury was whether Ulbricht, a physics major from Austin, Texas, was Dread Pirate Roberts, a pseudonym adopted from the fictional character in the novel The Princess Bride, and the ruthless mastermind operating the Silk Road website.
Mr Turner and Timothy Howard, his fellow prosecutor, relied heavily on digital evidence recovered from Ulbricht’s laptop computer, including personal journals, private chat logs, files for aliases, encryption keys, bitcoin wallets and addresses.
They showed the jury private chat logs from Dread Pirate Roberts alerting Silk Road staff that he was going to be out of town next to Ulbricht’s personal emails containing airline ticket receipts. They matched Ulbricht’s Facebook posts about a trip to Thailand to a chat message in which Dread Pirate Roberts tells a Silk Road adviser that he is running around a jungle with girls.
Using Ulbricht’s own words, taken from the journal entries on his laptop, prosecutors told of Ulbricht’s ambition to turn Silk Road into a “phenomenon”.
The entries were both professional and personal. He wrote about surfing with friends and his struggle to explain himself to them without revealing his secrets.
Richard Bates, a college classmate of Ulbricht, testified that in 2011, after delivering an ultimatum, Ulbricht told him: “I’m working on a website where people can buy drugs.” Mr Bates recalled: “I remember seeing the homepage, seeing the green camel [logo] for the first time.”
Expenses for a cabin rental where Ulbricht made magic mushrooms to sell on Silk Road to launch the website matched a drug laboratory manual and receipts found on his laptop and Gmail account.
Where all roads lead
Documentary evidence used against Ulbricht
“They think I sold it” chat
Exhibit 226D
Exhibit 226D
“I’m running a . . . criminal enterprise” chat
Exhibit 229D
Exhibit 229D
“A website where people could buy anything” journal
Exhibit 240 A
Exhibit 240 A
“Everyone knows too much” message
Exhibit 240C
Exhibit 240C
“Too much time away from Silk Road” journal
Exhibit 240 D
Exhibit 240 D
“Covered in poison oak” log
Exhibit 241
Exhibit 241
“I have poison oak” email
Exhibit 325
Exhibit 325
Messages from Dread Pirate Roberts
Exhibit 936
Exhibit 936
Ulbricht’s ambitions were met, they said. He instituted vendor agreements and required commissions on sales. Silk Road generated $200m in revenues and $13m in commissions, it was estimated.
Mr Howard said Ulbricht would do anything to protect his “baby”. He read screeds of private chat messages in which Dread Pirate Roberts solicited the murder of five Silk Road users who threatened the website from someone he believed was a Hells Angels member. The “hits” discussed matched entries on a log located on Ulbricht’s computer. The prosecutors told the jury there was no evidence anyone was harmed.
Joshua Dratel, an experienced defence attorney acting for Ulbricht, told the jury that his client had created the website but said he handed it to someone else when it became too much for him to handle.
Ulbricht was framed — perhaps by Mark Karpèles, the founder of Mt Gox, the largest bitcoin exchange until its collapse, or someone else — and lured back only when the real Dread Pirate Roberts felt law enforcement closing in on him, Mr Dratel said. Karpèles has denied any involvement and has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Ulbricht’s lawyer sought to punch holes in the case by arguing that it was possible that someone else had put the voluminous files on Ulbricht’s laptop by hacking into his computer when he was online using an open portal.
In a sense, he put the internet on trial, pressing the jury to be wary since documents could be changed or manipulated online and asking them to question whether anyone could ever know who was on the other side of a computer screen.
There were many questions left unanswered. Mr Dratel did not tell the jury how or when Ulbricht was lured back to the website.
Several tactical moves by Ulbricht’s lawyers also backfired — moves that drew unusual criticism from Judge Katherine Forrest and rulings that Mr Dratel said, after the verdict, had given the jury a “one-sided” case.
During opening statements, Mr Dratel told the jury Ulbricht had traded bitcoins, which would explain why so many were found on his laptop. In response, prosecutors hired a former FBI agent to analyse bitcoin transfers. He talked the jury through how he had traced $13m of bitcoins from Silk Road to wallets found on Ulbricht’s laptop.
Mr Dratel objected to the government’s analysis but the judge said he had “opened the door to it”.
The lawyer also sought to call two experts, one to discuss bitcoin and the other internet security. Judge Forrest refused to allow the experts, in part, because of a lack of notice.
In a harshly-worded ruling, she wrote of Mr Dratel: “If he has a particular defence theory that requires evidence to support it, he must insure that he has prepared a case to get such evidence in.
“Why did the defence choose to proceed as it has? This court cannot know. Perhaps a tactical choice not to show the defence’s hand; perhaps to try and accumulate appeal points; perhaps something else,” the judge added.
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