Wasn’t he in jail for hiring a contract killer?
I’m all for the freeing him of his crimes when it comes to his crypto anarchic philosophy. But I find it hard to pardon someone for contract killing essentially. Also I’m not an apologist for the FBIs handling of this case either.
No, that charge was dropped. IIRC, it was on shaky ground and they were just trying to throw the book at him.
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According to Wikipedia[1], he was convicted of charges related to hacking, narcotics, money laundering, and more.
But during the trial, evidence was presented that he made murder-for-hire payments, the court found that he did by a preponderance of evidence, and the court took this into account when sentencing him.
So, he wasn't convicted of it, but it is part of the reason he was sent to jail for a very long time.
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Some info from a previous thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33045520
I haven't reviewed the info for a while but it was pretty clearly entrapment as I recall.
It was not entrapment. There is mention of undercover purchases and a controlled delivery by law enforcement, but these are not entrapment. Most of the evidence came from his own laptop.
Didn't Ulbricht actually run the Silk Road? Did someone from the FBI persuade Ulbricht to do it?
I think they're talking about just the murder-for-hire. It may have just been undercover agents the whole time and no murders actually occurred.
Attempting to hire a hitman who turns out to be an FBI agent is still a crime, and likely not entrapment in the legal sense.
It was entrapment because federal agents posing as crime bosses were threatening Ross that if he didn't hire the hitman there would be serious consequences. He was manipulated and forced into the position he was in.
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By accepting the pardon the accused concedes to guilt in the crime.
This is not necessarily true. In Burdick v. United States it does say "an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it" but there is debate about whether it is binding of not.
Apparently, there is something in Lorance v. Commandant, U.S. Disciplinary Barracks that indicates that accepting a pardon does not imply guilt, but I am not very knowledge on that.
Yes the FBI had root or admin access to the Silk Road system and could have very easily changed or otherwise affected logs/record IDs that the technical case rested on. Two of the FBI agents on the case were later punished for corruption on the case.
He was in jail for running a darknet drug marketplace. Hiring a contract killer was a crime he was neither charged with nor convicted of.
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