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Comment by CSSer | Hacker News Reader

> non-violent charges

Although the murder-for-hire charges were dropped, transcripts published by Wired in 2015[0] show Ross Ulbricht openly discussing contract killings: he haggles over price, suggests interrogation, and even provides personal details about a target’s family (“Wife + 3 kids”). These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York, making further prosecution moot—but the transcripts themselves factored into his sentencing. No killings occurred (he was likely scammed), yet the conversations challenge the notion that his crimes were purely non-violent. He was willing to have someone killed to protect his idea.

[0]: https://archive.is/pRG3U.

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> These charges were dismissed partly because he had already been sentenced to life in New York

It was further complicated because a couple of the law enforcement officers involved with setting up one of the six murder-for-hire scams* stole the Bitcoin Ulbricht paid and it was also felt that trying to prosecute based solely on the other chat logs would have been difficult. The FBI agent who arrested Ulbricht was interviewed about it recently[1].

* The other five are said to not have been law enforcement, which makes it curious the number of times Ulbricht was scammed in this manner.

[1] https://risky.biz/RB770/

The charges, sure. The ethical and moral implications, no.

The murder for hire was done with the admin account which was called "Dread Pirate Roberts" from the novel "The Princess Bride". The thing about the name is that is passed on over and over. The admin has claimed multiple times that he is not the original nor first administrator (Ross) of the silk road.

In addition you have the guy that was supposed to be murdered also claiming that it could not have been Ross.

The murder for hire case was very weak and then in addition you had the two federal agents working the murder for hire case charged for stealing bitcoins.

This is silly whataboutism. They have plenty of evidence, including PST/PDT timestamps and proof he logged out of other personal accounts when he logged into that account, that suggested it was him. Despite his claims, they watched him extensively and found no indication that anyone else was posing as DPR.

Not to mention that he was caught in part because the first public advertisements for Silk Road were traced back to his personal accounts, and there's strong evidence that he personally grew the first batch of shrooms that launched the market. It was all him from the beginning.

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