> A hard-working coder, Smed, or “Smedley” as he was otherwise known, had completely reworked key elements of the Silk Road infrastructure, and was being paid $2,500 a week for his services, more than any other employee.

Well that's depressing: he could have made more at a vanilla programming job in California. You know, one that would have zero chance of jail time. Did he fail to price his risk in, or did he just love this project that much?