
Second U.S. Agent Agrees to Plead Guilty to Bitcoin Theft - sidko
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/second-u-s-agent-agrees-to-plead-guilty-to-bitcoin-theft
======
swombat
Looking at the other side of the coin, perhaps also worth asking (even if the
answer is a negative):

Given what we know about the coercive nature of the plea system in the US,
which frequently forces people to plead guilty even when they're innocent, to
avoid a very expensive, long, and likely "unhappy-ending" trial, is it
possible that these FBI agents are actually innocent and simply being coerced
into filing guilty pleas to turn 20 year sentences into 5 year sentences?

I mean, this is almost a banana republic we're talking about here after all.
What was the percentage of people putting in guilty pleas who are innocent? I
can't find the article but I recall it was quite high. If we apply this line
of thinking to people we like, we should also apply it to people we don't
like.

~~~
martin1975
Would you be coerced to plea guilty knowing you were innocent?

~~~
Sacho
Absolutely. Litigation is ruinously expensive and prosecutors have an almost
flawless conviction rate. When you're placed in such a shitty situation where
you get the choice of ruining your life a little and ruining your life a
lot(and possibly your family and friends' lives as they try to help you
along), it's not as cut and dry as "would you plead guilty knowing you were
innocent". People do this _every day_. It's why prosecutors pile charges on,
and it works.

~~~
true_religion
> prosecutors have an almost flawless conviction rate.

This is because anytime there is an absolute chance they'll lose, they drop
the case.

And if the case is less than a 100% guaranteed slam dunk, they'll ask for a
plea so it'll never go to trial.

Prosecutors cherry pick their trials. It's not possible for every prosecutor
everywhere to keep a 98%+ average trial conviction rate in a normal system.

~~~
Tomte
Sounds like sensible and desirable behaviour to me. You might even call it
"normal".

Edit: I'd really like to see how all the downvoters would like to defend their
stance. It's obvious that prosecutorial misconduct is not happening when
prosecutors abandon cases that are marginal, but when they are harassing
people they don't have a chance of getting convicted.

~~~
ifdefdebug
Well I didn't downvote you, but: "Desirable behaviour" would be for a
prosecutor to seek truth, not conviction. That's what I would call "normal".
And guess what: there are countries in this world where prosecutors think like
that: they are glad to drop charges as soon as they see someone's innocent.

~~~
sambe
The judge/jury/overall process seek the truth. I do not consider that the role
of the prosecutor at all. I don't think legal philosophy aligns that way
either?

~~~
Tomte
I think it's a bit different in the United States, but in my country (D), for
example, prosecutors have detailed guidelines how to proceed.

For one, they are obligated to investigate any exonerating evidence and
circumstances, and any exculpatory circumstances. All of this must be revealed
fully to the court and the defense, prior to the main trial.

For another, they must only charge when they believe that a conviction is more
probable than an acquittal ("my chances are at best 20%, but let's see how it
goes" would be clear misconduct).

In practice, the conviction rates are more than 90%, for sure (if you count a
conviction for a lesser crime).

As a prosecutor once told me: trials can be freak events. After listening to
the witnesses firsthand, or after some dramatic revelation, everything can
look much different than it looked in the file. But other than that, they
almost always win at least partially.

And another reason is workload. Apart from really high profile, highly
publicized cases, resources are extremely limited and prosecutors mostly try
to close the files.

------
ipsin
I'll be interested to see what a gross abuse of power gets you, in terms of
sentencing.

~~~
serf
it seems to be related to the amount of people involved.

If you run away with a bag of cash, you'll get (metaphorically) beheaded.

If you and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and Countrywide run away with a bag of
cash, prepare for a fairly bad spanking.

~~~
ghayes
As they say: if you owe your banker one million dollars, he has you by the
balls. If you owe your banker one billion dollars, you have him by the balls.

Edit: phrasing

~~~
chrisbennet
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100
million, that's the bank's problem." \- J. P. Getty

------
cm2187
It is useful to get these regular reminders that the authorities to which we
give every day more power, are as human as they have ever been. Reading this,
it is not exactly outside of the realm of realism that an FBI/NSA/GCHQ/etc
agent would sell private personal data collected in the name of anti-
terrorism!

------
trhway
>In addition, prosecutors allege Force used his supervisor’s signature stamp
on a subpoena to unfreeze one of his own accounts that had been blocked for
suspicious activity.

...

>Bridges allegedly filed an affidavit for a warrant to seize the Mt. Gox Co.
exchange, where Silk Road bitcoins were stored, and its owner’s bank accounts
two days after he had taken his own money out of it, according to the criminal
complaint.

this couple of bad FBI apples obviously can't cast any doubt onto the
integrity of the rest of the FBI Silk Road team (consisting mainly of pure-
breed white knights in shiny Lexuses) nor onto the integrity of the whole
investigation and conviction....... The trial was 3 ring circus beyond
reasonable doubt. F&cking clowns. It isn't the issue whether DPR was this guy
or not, or whether he really hired a killer. The issue is that my taxes are
extorted from me in order to, supposedly, finance justice process, and what
i've got for my money was a show so lame that it wasn't worth even a rotten
tomato to throw at it.

In the light of the so far surfaced crimes by the FBI agents the epic heroic
story [http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-
road-2/](http://www.wired.com/2015/05/silk-road-2/) looks like a new story:

"DPR believed that Nob was a Puerto Rican cartel middleman named Eladio
Guzman, but he was in fact DEA agent Carl Force. Force had spent more than a
year developing his undercover identity on Silk Road in an effort to get close
to DPR. They’d become confidants, spending nights chatting at such length that
DPR trusted Nob when he needed enforcement muscle.

It was Nob whom DPR hired to kill his employee, Curtis Green. Force then
coerced Green into faking his own death as a ruse. Force was surprised to see
DPR’s moral collapse up close, but then again, he’d seen this kind of thing
before, during his younger DEA years in undercover. He too had experienced the
temptations that came with a double identity. In fact, his secret life as a
hard-partying operator had nearly destroyed his regular life. He’d left all
that behind and recommitted himself to Christ. The Silk Road case was his
first undercover role since those days, and it was a big one. Because of his
tenure online as Nob, Force was able to carry out the supposed “hit” on Green,
setting DPR up for a murder conspiracy indictment while at the same time
cementing their relationship. Nob and DPR had become comrades-in-arms."

I mean, obviously, this heroic Force whose court testimonies and affidavits
sent the guy for life couldn't be the same Force who stole the money. I mean
we're talking about commitment to Christ after all... Did i mention clowns?

And this one is the icing -
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2015/03/31/force-
and-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahjeong/2015/03/31/force-and-
bridges/):

"A state’s witness took the fall for an agent’s theft, thus becoming the
target for a murder-for-hire—a murder that was then faked by the same agent.
The Silk Road case was compromised again and again as Force and Bridges
allegedly took every opportunity to embezzle and steal money. With so much
bitcoin on their hands, the two had to coax various bitcoin and payments
companies to help convert their ill-gotten gains to dollars. When companies
resisted, investigations were launched, subpoenas were issued, and civil
forfeitures were sought in retaliation."

~~~
ikeboy
>I mean, obviously, this heroic Force whose court testimonies and affidavits
sent the guy for life couldn't be the same Force who stole the money.

There was no affidavit or testimony by Force or Bridges, as far as I know.
Please source that if true.

~~~
trhway
[http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=33909420&z...](http://www.plainsite.org/dockets/download.html?id=33909420&z=9e105f7b)

this is Ulbricht's murder-for-hire case in Maryland (the undercover agent in
the indictment is obviously Force). That murder-for-hire charge has strongly
affected the New York case, in particular it was the basis for denying bail to
Ulbricht, not disclosing prosecution witnesses until the trial, and was also
used as a strong argument in support of suppressing Ulbricht's 4th Amendment
rights ([http://www.scribd.com/doc/238796613/Silk-Road-
Prosecution-4t...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/238796613/Silk-Road-
Prosecution-4th-Amendment-Rebuttall)). After all, the FBI stole the Ulbricht's
laptop from the library. And obviously such murder charge "helped" the Judge
to make up her mind, especially with respect to sentencing, and prepare her
Grand Condemnation Speech (and to not let the Speech go waste the Judge didn't
let the Ulbricht's defense to bring up the Force's and Bridge's crimes while
that murder charge based on the Force's testimonies was heavily affecting the
case).

~~~
ikeboy
There were 5 murders-for-hires claims, not all which were linked to Force.
They don't rely on his testimony or affidavit.

You're conflating different charges here.

"After all, the FBI stole the Ulbricht's laptop from the library."

Don't see how that's relevant.

> And obviously such murder charge "helped" the Judge to make up her mind,
> especially with respect to sentencing, and prepare her Grand Condemnation
> Speech (and to not let the Speech go waste the Judge didn't let the
> Ulbricht's defense to bring up the Force's and Bridge's crimes while that
> murder charge based on the Force's testimonies was heavily affecting the
> case).

They weren't allowed to bring it up publically, but they argued in front of
the Judge all they wanted, so the claim that it affected the judge is
irrelevant. The only people who couldn't see it that mattered was the jurt,
but you'd have to claim that evidence gathered by Force/Bridges was brought up
in court; that is not true, as far as I know.

There was sufficient evidence of the murder for hire charges just from the
laptop seized with no input from Force.

~~~
trhway
>There were 5 murders-for-hires claims,

The total was 6.

>not all which were linked to Force. They don't rely on his testimony or
affidavit.

You're right :) The other 5 didn't have even as much as the words of
criminally crooked DEA agent behind them and thus quietly disappeared.

>You're conflating different charges here.

No, the Maryland case is exactly that 1 last murder-for-hire claim left - of
SR employee CCG (Green) which is based on Force's testimony.

>"After all, the FBI stole the Ulbricht's laptop from the library."

>Don't see how that's relevant.

As i already explained (and you can google it yourself), that charge was used
by prosecution to argue to suppress (and the suppression was granted) the 4th
Amendment defense's motion.

>so the claim that it affected the judge is irrelevant.

Judge denied bail and denied disclosure of witnesses to defense because of
that charge. How that can be said irrelevant? Judge sentenced Ulbricht to
life, harshest possible sentence here. Obviously it was relevant here too.

>There was sufficient evidence of the murder for hire charges just from the
laptop seized with no input from Force.

Until you was on that Maryland Grand Jury and witnessed yourself how the Jury
guessed just from the laptop that the "Nob" was an undercover agent who was
working on the case since specific date in 2012 ... As they clearly state in
the indictment that it was such an undercover agent, thus they must have heard
the testimony by Force, and thus whether this testimony was necessary is
really a moot point because they did heard it and gave appropriate weight to
it. Arguing after-the-fact that some "poisoned fruit" wasn't important would
be an obvious loophole around "no fruit of poisoned tree" principle and thus
isn't acceptable. And by the way, the laptop was stolen illegally, the 4th
Amendment violation. And now see above about the 4th rights suppression :)

~~~
ikeboy
>No, the Maryland case is for the 1 murder-for-hire claim - of SR employee CCG
(Green) which is based on Force's testimony.

Yes, but you also referred to murder for hire charges as influencing the
judge; why do you think it's specifically Force's testimony that influenced
her, as opposed to all the other evidence?

>As i already explained (and you can google it yourself), that charge was used
by prosecution to argue to suppress (and the suppression was granted) the 4th
Amendment defense's motion.

Can you excerpt the part of that document 9in a more searchable form here
[https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/silkr...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/2014/09/silkroaddoc.pdf)) that says that? I've read through
much of it, and the charge isn't mentioned as part of any 4th Amendment
claims; it's hard to see how that would even make sense legally.

>Judge denied bail because of that charge. How that can be said irrelevant?

It's irrelevant insofar as any claims that Force isn't reliable; the judge
knew whatever was from Force (which you still haven't shown, but even if you
did), and the judge knew Force was being charged, so they could take it into
account.

>As they clearly state in the indictment that it was such an undercover agent,
thus they must have heard the testimony by Force, and thus whether this
testimony was necessary is really a moot point because they did heard it.

They Maryland Jury may have heard from Force, but that wasn't what his trial
was based on. To support your claim above, you need to show that what he was
actually sentenced on was based on Force's testimony/affidavit, and as there
was plenty of evidence without Force and nothing obtained by Force was brought
up in the trial, your claim seems very week.

>And by the way, the laptop was stolen illegally

Says who? They had a warrant. Did you even read that document you linked?

~~~
trhway
we're kind of starting to walk in circles. Search this one for example for
"Maryland" (prosecution's bail denial motion granted by the Judge).

[http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/11/Ross-U...](http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2013/11/Ross-
Ulbricht_Gov-Bail-Response-to-Bail-Request.pdf)

There is nothing about Force's crimes in the document. So the "honest" Force's
testimony based Maryland case (read the description of the other 5 murder-for-
hire claims if you don't see how the Maryland was the Force's case, and it was
the only claim that made it at least to the indictment stage) was used to deny
bail in the New York case where Ulbricht was sentenced to life. Or to
"protect" witnesses from him -
[https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/nysd/422824/107-0...](https://www.unitedstatescourts.org/federal/nysd/422824/107-0.html).
If you fail to see connection here ... Anyway, i rest my case :)

Edit: in response to your response below - denied bail, denied timely access
to witnesses, denied other stuff with that "murder-for-hire" going though a
lot of the trial's documents - it is obviously that Judge "gave notice" to
that charge and thus the trial was obviously "poisoned". As i already
mentioned above, allowing for the after-the-fact calculation of exact gaps and
other effects by the "poison" would be a loophole around the "no-poisoning"
principle. The trial was materially poisoned, and thus the sentence poisoned
too.

~~~
ikeboy
That document is from 2013; did the government even know Force was guilty of
anything at the time?

And that doesn't prove your claim that he was sentenced to life based on
Force's testimony, only denied bail. There's quite a large gap between those
two claims.

------
spinlock
I'm just glad these heroes are keeping us safe.

