
Silk Road Defense Says Ulbricht Was Framed by the ‘Real’ Dread Pirate Roberts - peter123
http://www.wired.com/2015/01/isilk-road-trial-opening-statements/
======
neotek
I know he's fighting for his freedom and you can't begrudge a man for doing
whatever it takes to beat a charge, but I really think this is such a cop-out
defense and I wish he had the balls to act like the same person he pretended
to be when he was writing his grand manifestos about freedom of choice and
individual rights.

Whatever Ulbricht himself may be, whether or not the murder for hire
allegations are true, however he might have gone about running Silk Road, the
libertarian ideals that justify the existence of Silk Road should have their
day in court. But that won't happen here, because his defense relies on Silk
Road being a terrible thing that somebody else did.

~~~
phaus
>the libertarian ideals that justify the existence of Silk Road should have
their day in court

Real trials don't play out like they do in hollywood. You don't get to spend
your time in court talking about your ideology and lobbying for better laws.
The entire trial will be about whether or not he's guilty of breaking the laws
that already exist.

~~~
dmix
The defense can object to letting him explain his libertarian viewpoints if
they can convince the judge it is not relevant to the case or charges. Which
the prosecutor in this case directly attempted during pretrial last month:

> Prosecutors in the case against alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht
> want the court to prohibit Ulbricht from saying almost anything political at
> all, according to a motion filed last week by the government.

> They’re worried that the jury might end up sympathizing with Ulbricht’s
> politics.

[http://www.dailydot.com/politics/silk-road-jury-
nullificatio...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/silk-road-jury-
nullification-political/)

~~~
mindslight
If he were being tried by a jury of _his peers_ , it would not need
explaining.

~~~
anigbrowl
'peer group' != legal 'peers'. [http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-
procedure/what-is-a-jur...](http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-
procedure/what-is-a-jury-of-peers.html)

~~~
phaus
And this is why I hope I never end up on trial for anything. Some types of
people are more easy to dislike than others. For example, I have asperger's.
I'm pretty certain that if I ever went on trial for anything, my personality
would increase the chances that I get convicted.

~~~
dmix
Criminal lawyers don't let defendants talk for a reason, that is their job.

------
diminoten
So for him to effectively use this defense, he'd have to cast reasonable doubt
on the prosecution's evidence that _he_ was "Dread Pirate Roberts"?

And in order to do that, he'd have to discredit the authenticity of their
evidence that his computer was the one doing all the work, which means the
defense would have to show that his computer was hacked, and all of the
evidence was forged by the hacker(s).

How's he going to show a jury of non-techies (which you _know_ the prosecution
selected for) that it was all just his computer getting hacked?

How do _any_ high-level technical trials work, when the jury goes into the
trial not educated on the topic? The reliance on expert testimony?

~~~
bsder
Well, if his defense can throw up enough dust, the government will likely have
to abandon the charges around murder and go for something a lot lower level.

------
anigbrowl
Ah, the 'Keyser Soze' defense.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyser_S%C3%B6ze](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyser_S%C3%B6ze)

~~~
ritchiea
Or the Shaggy defense.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5fqunQ_4I](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qv5fqunQ_4I)

------
btilly
It will be interesting to see this unfold. But I am inclined to believe
Ulbricht here.

My main reason for finding it immediately believable is that the name "Dread
Pirate Roberts" is an obvious _Princess Bride_ reference to a pirate who
inherited his trade and occupation from another pirate. That combined with the
fact that the name did not appear on the forums for the first few months leads
me to believe that the name is an inside joke about the fact that the Dread
Pirate Roberts did not create the site.

The 2013 quote from the Dread Pirate Roberts saying the same thing when he had
no particular reason to lie is just icing on the cake.

~~~
mc32
People were inclined to believe Hans Reiser too[1],[2], untill he led the
police to Nina's body.

Despite all the evidence, lots of people did not want to believe it was him
and held out for hope, in the end, though, people realized indeed it was he
who did it.

[1] [http://news.slashdot.org/story/08/06/09/1155214/hans-
reiser-...](http://news.slashdot.org/story/08/06/09/1155214/hans-reiser-to-
reveal-location-of-wifes-body)

[2][http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/02/23/2218256/hans-
reiser-a...](http://yro.slashdot.org/story/08/02/23/2218256/hans-reiser-and-
the-geek-defense-strategy)

~~~
jason_slack
I totally wanted to believe in Hans, given his accomplishments to the file
system community and open source, I was saddened when he admitted to doing it.

------
kassemi
Given a jury without sufficient education and a case with as much technical
nuance as this and then a reasonable doubt that the same technical nuance
_could_ indicate a frame job... Seems like an ok move...

~~~
hackerboos
I'd say it was a good strategy in light of overwhelming evidence he is
connected to the site.

He's still going to prison just maybe not for the rest of his life.

------
codezero
Will be interesting to see how this plays out. Maybe they just need to
convince the jury he didn't act alone? There is probably a decent amount of
evidence to show he had help and maybe wasn't running the whole operation, but
this seems like a defense approach that will make the jury very suspicious
from the onset.

~~~
nerfhammer
I think the strategy is to dazzle the jury with confusing uncertainty

~~~
ccleve
Ah, the Chewbacca Defense.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewbacca_defense)

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exo762
As for "murder for hire": he was never charged with it. Why?! Why on earth
prosecutors have chosen not to throw a book on a guy? Because it never
happened. Whole "murder for hire" story is just a part of smear campaign.

~~~
tomp
Well, the other possibility is that there isn't enough proof. But IMO if there
isn't enough proof, he's not guilty, and they shouldn't even _mention_ it, to
avoid damaging his public perception.

~~~
ubernostrum
The counterpoint to what you say is that the evidence comes from personal
documents/conversations/etc. they obtained, and if they released _some_ of
that but not _all_ \-- in order to avoid publicly releasing any murder-for-
hire bits -- you would be here saying that the selective release is suspicious
and that they should release _everything_ in order to avoid damaging his
reputation through cherry-picking evidence.

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refurb
Wasn't Ulbricht logged into an administrator account of Silk Road when he was
busted at the library?

That would make it harder to claim you were "framed".

~~~
Retra
No, their genius leadership somehow got him to come back for... for whatever.
Yes, people he doesn't really know doing illegal things that he didn't want to
be a part of convinced him to go to a public space and get back into it just
before he got caught. All because they are far to clever to get themselves
caught, you see.

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sidcool
Not a bad start.

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YoAdrian
The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in
Patagonia.

~~~
Bendude137
Pantagonia... sounds like I'd like the weather there

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tedunangst
Wow. I had a joke theory that the "real truth" was the Silk Road was a DEA
sting operation but the (gov) operators were caught skimming and needed to
shut it down in a hurry. I didn't think that would be the real defense.

