How the feds staged torture, murder of a Silk Road stafferMeanwhile, Silk Road judge denies Ross Ulbricht's bid for a new trial.
by Cyrus Farivar - Apr 28, 2015 2:35pm CDT
TARGET OF SILK ROAD MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT TELLS HIS STORY
47-year-old Utah grandpa liked Bitcoin, "never intended" to get into drug deals.
On Tuesday, Wired published an extensive feature on Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s rise and fall, which contains some new details surrounding the government-orchestrated fake execution of a Silk Road lieutenant, Curtis Green, better known as “chronic pain.”
As Ars reported at the end of the trial in February, Ulbricht was found guilty of seven charges including three drug counts: distributing or aiding and abetting the distribution of narcotics, distributing narcotics or aiding and abetting distribution over the Internet, and conspiracy to violate narcotics laws. His sentencing hearing is currently scheduled for May 15, 2015 in federal court in New York.
Wired detailed how one day in January 2013 Green received a controlled delivery of a package in the mail—it turned out to be cocaine. [UPDATE Wednesday 11:21am CT: After being corrected by Coriolanus, a reader, and reviewing the relevant court documents, Ars has corrected our original language, which had stated that this was an "unexpected delivery," rather than one that was allowed to pass through by the relevant authorities.]
As soon as Green opened the package, a SWAT team stormed him and threw him to the ground, his two chihuahuas yapping around him. He immediately pleaded with the agents to not send him to prison, deathly afraid of Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR): “This guy’s got millions. He could have me killed.”
Green’s bust was orchestrated by Carl Force, a Drug Enforcement Administration special agent. Working undercover, Force passed himself off as “Nob,” or Eladio Guzman, a “cartel operative” who e-mailed DPR in April 2012:
Mr. Silk Road,
I am a great admirer of your work. Brilliant, utterly brilliant! I will keep this short and to the point. I want to buy the site. I’ve been in the business for over 20 years. SILK ROAD is the future of trafficking.
Sincerely,
E
Ulbricht began wondering what had happened to Green when he stopped responding to messages and eventually figured out that he had been arrested (and later released on bail). When $350,000 in bitcoins went missing and were attributed to Green, Ulbricht went ballistic and started telling various confidantes (including Force, as “Nob”) that he needed some “muscle” to take care of Green.
It didn’t take long for Force, who controlled Green’s computer, to determine exactly who Green was. Soon after contemplating suicide, Green was willing to cooperate with the authorities.
As Wired reported:
Force got Green to sign a waiver, thereby commencing his role in an impromptu staged torture sting against DPR. Soon Green was being dunked in the bathtub of a Marriott suite by phony thugs who were in fact a Secret Service agent and a Baltimore postal inspector. Force recorded the action on a camera. “Did you get it?” Green asked, wet and wheezing on the floor. He’d felt like their simulation was a little too accurate. They dunked him four more times to get a convincing shot.
…
It was like Scarface on fast-forward, Force thought. But he played right along. Over a week or so, Force conspired with his team to complete the fake death of Green. Force sent DPR photos of the staged torture, followed by photos of Green, facedown on the floor, pallid, smeared with Campbell’s Chicken & Stars soup—the supposed aftermath of asphyxiation. Green holed up in his house (he had to stay out of sight as part of the ruse) in a kind of self-imposed witness protection, and Force went back to Baltimore. DPR sent $40,000 to a Capital One account controlled by the government as an advance. DPR never got back the stolen bitcoins, but once in receipt of the putative proof of death, he sent another $40,000 for a job well done.
FURTHER READING
FEDS: 6 DIED AS A RESULT OF OVERDOSING FROM SILK ROAD-PURCHASED DRUGS
Defense: despite new gov't allegations, site actually implemented harm reduction.
Eventually, Force himself was accused of stealing from Silk Road and appeared before a federal judge in San Francisco on Tuesday—his detention hearing is scheduled for Wednesday. He faces four charges, including wire fraud and money laundering.
Denied
Meanwhile, a federal judge has denied Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht’s motion for a new trial in blunt language: “There is no basis in fact or law to grant the motion and it is DENIED.”
In her 25-page opinion and order released on Monday, United States District Judge Katherine Forrest acknowledged that Ulbricht’s legal defense, spearheaded by Joshua Dratel, opened well. But it went downhill from there.
As Ars reported from the courtroom in January 2015, the defense placed blame for Silk Road squarely on Mark Karpeles, the (now-former) CEO of the Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox.
As Judge Forrest wrote:
Counsel pursued this “alternative perpetrator” line of argument during cross- examination of the Government’s witnesses—particularly Special Agent (“SA”) Der- Yeghiayan, whom counsel questioned extensively regarding two other individuals who were investigated as possible leads on [Dread Pirate Roberts].
There is a necessary disconnect between this defense theory—presented in counsel’s opening and cross-examination—of what really happened, and the theory on this motion: that defendant has not had the time or information to develop any defense at all.
The evidence of Ulbricht’s guilt was, in all respects, overwhelming. It went unrebutted. This motion for a new trial urges that Ulbricht was prejudiced by that which he could not know in time, or at all. But the motion does not address how any additional evidence, investigation, or time would have raised even a remote (let alone reasonable) probability that the outcome of the trial would be any different.
Dratel argued that there were three primary reasons why a new trial should be granted. First, he claimed, the government did not hand over its evidence against Ulbricht soon enough (including evidence against the rogue agents). Second, that the government conducted “warrantless surveillance” on a Tor exit node, and finally that the defense expert witness Andreas Antonopoulos was disallowed to testify, as the defense did not follow the proper protocol.
Judge Forrest concluded: “None of these arguments supports granting a new trial.”
