
Defense in Silk Road Trial Says Mt. Gox CEO Was the Real Dread Pirate Roberts - jordn
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/defense-in-silk-road-trial-says-mt-gox-ceo-was-the-real-dread-pirate-roberts?utm_source=mbtwitter
======
clogston
For those not reading the article, please note this isn't just a claim made by
the defense. This came out of cross examination of a DHS agent.

    
    
      "You thought you had probable cause that Mark Karpeles
       was intimately involved, as the head of Silk 
       Road, correct?" Dratel asked Homeland Security agent
       Jared Der-Yeghiayan.
    
      "By the contents of that affidavit—yes," he answered.

~~~
madaxe_again
It's entirely possible that they are _both_ DPR... and there may be others. I
mean, that rather fits with the moniker.

It's also possible that the intent is to shed doubt on the prosecution by
showing how certain they were previously that Karpeles was DPR.

I find it interesting/bizarre that the judge instructed the jury to not watch
_The Princess Bride_.

~~~
etjossem
Why would the judge do that? It's up to the jury to determine - to the best of
their ability - whether the "DPR" moniker is really a reference to the multi-
headed nature of the group, or whether it's irrelevant. But either way, they
should know the context for the name.

~~~
taejo
If the jury should know, then either the defense or prosecution should
introduce it into evidence.

------
jlrubin
Breaking News: Mark Karpeles says that Ross Ulbricht is responsible for Mt.
Gox theft, was actually the CEO of the the failed exchange the whole time.

That said, this is actually a great defense.

~~~
Zancarius
I'm glad to see someone else thinking along those same lines. Unlikely, but
the possibilities in this case are hilariously endless.

The odd thing is that it _does_ raise some suspicions with Mt. Gox, the
bitcoin theft, Silk Road, etc. As moyix points out below[1], Karpeles
apparently registered silkroadmarket.org.

It's a strange little world.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8896016](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8896016)

~~~
mintplant
The Wayback Machine has an archived copy of silkroadmarket.org from 2011.

[http://web.archive.org/web/20110304201806/http://silkroadmar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20110304201806/http://silkroadmarket.org/)

It's signed by "-Silk Road staff" at the bottom. If this site was really owned
by Karpeles, then he definitely had _something_ to do with Silk Road, whether
or not he was DPR.

~~~
deckar01
Browsing through other dates it was cached reveals that it was regularly
updated with details about the SR registration being closed and server
outages.

~~~
mintplant
As far as I can tell, the downtime message [1] originated on
silkroadmarket.org [2-6]. It doesn't look like Karpeles could have reposted it
from somewhere else--he has to have been involved in the Silk Road's
operations if he was behind the site.

It's also worth noting that DPR linked to silkroadmarket.org in his signature
as the official way to get to site [7].

[1]
[http://web.archive.org/web/20120128114453/http://silkroadmar...](http://web.archive.org/web/20120128114453/http://silkroadmarket.org/)

[2]
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.5;wap2](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.5;wap2)

[3]
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17556.10;wap2](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=17556.10;wap2)

[4]
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=26644.0)

[5]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/i2mq7/the_silk_road_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/onions/comments/i2mq7/the_silk_road_got_busted/c20du4y)

[6] [http://dailyanarchist.com/2011/06/21/how-and-why-to-get-
to-s...](http://dailyanarchist.com/2011/06/21/how-and-why-to-get-to-silk-
road/comment-page-1/#comment-42241)

[7]
[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3984.msg57080#msg570...](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3984.msg57080#msg57080)

~~~
pakled_engineer
Karpeles ran one of the first bitcoin VPS services which is what Ulbricht used
to shill the .onion site and uptime status in the beginning.

------
copsarebastards
This headline seems unbelievable, but if all the evidence in the article it is
actually real, it does cast some reasonable doubt.

An alternative which hasn't been discussed yet is that maybe Karpeles was the
Dread Pirate Roberts and _then_ Ulbricht was. It has long been theorized that,
like the original name from _The Princess Bride_ , the title "Dread Pirate
Roberts" was passed from person to person. DerYeghiayan seems to have had some
reason to believe that Karpeles was DPR, while the prosecution seems to have
reason to believe that Ulbricht is DPR. Why not both?

~~~
jndsn402
I thought the defense's case was that Ulbricht was the original, and then
passed it on to someone else (now revealed to be Karpeles).

~~~
ceallen
He also claims they passed it back to him immediately before the bust. Only
slightly more effective than the "I was holding it for a friend" legal
defense.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Claims have to be backed with evidence.

~~~
toolz
Only if you're prosecuting. If you're defending yourself, all you have to do
is make it sound believable given the circumstances. A jury can find you not
guilty just because they don't like the law. To defend yourself in a U.S.
court you technically wouldn't need any evidence to substantiate any of your
claims just so long as the jury buys it.

~~~
jsprogrammer
For something to 'sound believable' there must be some evidence presented for
the claims that might be believed.

~~~
newaccountfool
Not really, the jury could all wake up with a though that he is innocent, and
when the time comes state that. He would then be innocent.

~~~
jsprogrammer
Are you claiming that jury members select a verdict at random? That there is
no thought process happening in each of the individuals on the jury?
Regardless of whether the juror's beliefs correspond to the actual reality of
the case, that individual will still require some reason (evidence) for
believing a particular thing. If you are trying to convince a juror of
something, you will need to interact with that individual on such a level that
you provide them with sufficient evidence for them to believe the claim you
want them to believe.

This is separate from the rule of law in the US where a prosecution must prove
its allegations beyond a reasonable doubt. It is true that a defense is not
required to make any claims or present any evidence. However, depending on the
jurors selected, in order to instill or preserve a reasonable doubt, some
claims may need to be made. In order for a juror to believe a claim, that
individual juror will need to find or receive some evidence sufficient for
them to believe the claim.

~~~
Retric
Out of the millions of trials that have happened I would not be surprised if
at least one jury that was undecided simply went with a coin flip or other
random means.

Historically this may even have been a unusual, but not that uncommon
practice. aka trusting in 'the gods' or some such.

------
t0dd
From The Verge article ([http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/15/7553591/silk-road-
trial-ro...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/15/7553591/silk-road-trial-ross-
ulbricht-mt-gox-mark-karpeles)):

"One of Karpeles' companies had registered 'Silkroadmarket.org,' leading
investigators to consider him as a suspect."

Silk Road launched in February 2011: that's the same month Karpeles (or his
associate at Mutum Sigilum) registered the domain

[https://who.is/domain-history/silkroadmarket.org](https://who.is/domain-
history/silkroadmarket.org)

~~~
gweinberg
That's really bad reasoning on the part of the investigators. Registering a
.org domain name similar to the name of your secret underground site is a
stupid and completely pointless thing to do.

~~~
diminoten
They don't have to convince a jury it was Karpeles, just that it may _not_
have been Ulbricht.

------
DigitalSea
I wonder if this play will hold up? When they busted Ulbricht at a public
library, didn't they catch him in the act of talking to agent DerYeghiayan via
Pidgin who told Ross to check out a support ticket? I thought they had
screenshots of the chat as well as Ulbricht being logged into the site itself.
They have conclusively linked Ulbricht to the site, however, they have failed
to conclusively prove that he is the mastermind of the site itself and that
there weren't others involved.

So my limited understanding here and what this case is actually about is that
it is not so much trying to prove that Ulbricht had anything to do with the
site (because the association was proven), but rather who actually was the
mastermind behind the site (and pocketing large sums of cash from
transactions). Seems association with such a site would carry a lesser charge
than being the one who was profiting off of the marketplace and behind its
original conception (this is my limited understanding and it could be wrong).

This story is absolutely insane, it will be interesting to see where this case
heads. From what I gather, the bust in the library, screenshots of the chat
and admin panel of the site and supposedly a few scrunched up pieces of paper
found in the bin of Ulbrichts home are all they have (that we know about).
There is nothing that actually proves or disproves that either Ulbricht or
Karpeles, are the owners of Silk Road.

Now we just need the defence to come out and claim that Karpeles is actually
Satoshi Nakamoto and then we've got ourselves a super interesting case. There
is undoubtedly a movie script in here somewhere once the case is finished.

~~~
colordrops
No one would believe the author of the insecure PHP spaghetti code behind Mt.
Gox is the same as painstakingly careful designer of bitcoin.

~~~
eru
Perfect alibi? </sarcasm>

~~~
helium
You would have to suffer from multiple personality disorder to pull that off,
I'm sure :)

------
downandout
It's an interesting tactic, but will likely fall upon deaf ears. They arrested
him at the library while he was logged into the site as an admin. That,
combined with the fact that he possessed a Bitcoin wallet with ~144,000 BTC
(worth ~$28.5 million at the time) in it, will likely carry more weight than
any argument that other people were possibly running it. They also admitted on
day 1 of the trial that he created SR - they are just saying that he turned it
over to someone else and wasn't running it. All the government has to prove
now is that he profited from it, which seems like a very low hurdle given the
amount of BTC he had.

Based upon all of this, I'd say he has a 99.9% chance of conviction, and will
receive a sentence that will amount to life in prison. This judge will make an
example out of him.

~~~
tomp
It's really sad that there is a possibility for people who are convicted of
non-violent, victimless crimes to spend their whole lives in prison.

~~~
davej
He also allegedly hired a hitman to take out 6 people. The hits weren't
executed because the hitman was undercover but if this is true then I have no
sympathy for him.

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/silk-
road-...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/21/silk-road-founder-
held-without-bail)

~~~
tomp
> allegedly

I have lots of sympathy for a man who was accused of something, smeared in the
eyes of the public (and potential jurors), but wasn't even charged with that
crime!

~~~
csandreasen
He was charged for it - it is part 4 of the "Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy"
charge in his indictment:

[http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/February14/Ros...](http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/February14/RossUlbrichtIndictmentPR/US%20v.%20Ross%20Ulbricht%20Indictment.pdf)

------
ChuckMcM
This is slowly developing the patina of an academy award winning movie :-).
Sad for the folks involved by interesting to watch.

~~~
angrymonk
Maybe one must be made ...

------
malloreon
If this is true then nearly all of bitcoin's growth over the last 3 years can
be directly attributable to Mark Karpeles, either in the form of outright
price manipulation, or the running of illegal goods marketplaces.

~~~
krapp
It would be ironic if the gold standard for decentralized, anarcho-capitalist
currencies turned out to be more centrally controlled than the USD....

~~~
mculp
"Centrally controlled" is not the same thing as one guy who has a very large
stake.

Bitcoin, by definition, is not "centrally controlled." It doesn't matter how
many coins any entity controls, there's nothing that it could do to actually
break the system or remove the inherent value of bitcoin. The fact that there
are thousands and thousands of miners and nodes around the world protecting
the ledger (the blockchain) is what makes bitcoin so groundbreaking.

~~~
krapp
Ok fine. If not 'controlled' then manipulated, perhaps.

------
adamnemecek
Someone call Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher to get in on this.

~~~
ballpoint
I'm sure they don't need calling. They'll be all over this...

------
jmtame
Up next, Satoshi Nakamoto is revealed to be Mark Karpeles

~~~
jkeat
well,

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com//2013/11/23/study-suggests-
lin...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com//2013/11/23/study-suggests-link-between-
dread-pirate-roberts-and-satoshi-nakamoto/)

but they later retracted their claim.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-satoshi-paper-
retra...](http://www.businessinsider.com/silk-road-satoshi-paper-
retraction-2013-11)

~~~
markburns
Interesting point from the retraction article.

> He says the account was randomly assigned to him by the Mt. Gox exchange

So the suggestion that DPR is not Satoshi relates to evidence from Mt Gox.

------
mhomde
If this theory wouldn't make a an awesome yarn for a Sorkin/Fincher movie I
don't know what would. Karpeles to be played by Paul Giamatti and Ulbricht by
Robert Pattinson.

------
ipsin
One thing I haven't see in the legal analysis: If Ulbricht is guilty of the
things that the defense has stipulated (building and running SilkRoad for some
period of time), doesn't that mean he's admitted to most of the relevant
charges?

I'm not sure what the "I'm not the kingpin" defense actually buys.

~~~
fleitz
It depends on the specific acts he's being charged with, if he can create
reasonable doubts to that then he's not guilty. 'Operating SilkRoad' isn't a
crime, trafficking drugs is.

~~~
titaniumdecoy
How are those two things different exactly?

~~~
bmelton
Depending on one's interpretation of common carrier, it's the same as the
difference between "delivering email from user a to user b" and "conspiring
with terrorists"

------
Cub3
This would be an insane story if true but will wait for the facts to come out
before jumping to conclusions

------
jedanbik
So does this mean that Karpeles will/could be summoned for examination? I am
very intrigued by this juicy turn of events.

------
CodeWriter23
The subtle implication here is "throw some shit at the wall and see what
sticks" was Der-Yeghiayan's investigative method of choice. Always good to
discredit the prosecution's lead witnesses if you can.

------
rudolf0
I don't think there was anything fundamentally unethical about Silk Road
(other than the owner very likely attempting to have several people murdered,
of course), but the defense is clearly grasping at straws here.

~~~
sp332
From reporter [https://twitter.com/sarahjeong](https://twitter.com/sarahjeong)

Trial adjourned. There's a lot going on. DHS agent was pursuing Karpeles as
late as August 2013. Ulbricht was arrested Oct 2013. Like I wrote in my last
article, he went after Ulbricht based on a tip off from an IRS agent in
September 2013. Whiplash! Amazing moment later today: in affadavit, DHS agent
referred to @a_greenberg's interview of DPR and said it sounded like Mark
Karpeles. Recall, this is the same guy who was on a 6 person team to arrest
Ulbricht. In Aug '13 he said he had probable cause to suspect Karpeles.

~~~
sp332
[More tweets] DHS agent acknowledged under cross that he was preparing an
affadavit for a warrant to search Karpeles's email. DHS agent's OWN THEORY
around early to mid 2013 was that Mt. Gox and Silk Road worked in tandem.
Investigation found that Mutum Sigilum, a Karpeles holding, had registered
silkroadmarket.org

------
sandworm
Lol. When I was at school this tactic, creating doubt by blaming someone else,
was called "Plan B" after a plot line from the TV series The Practice.

~~~
imjk
It's almost a requirement in a criminal defense case to have an alternative
culprit, just the same way that it's almost required to have a motive and a
weapon in a homicide case. The defense needs to raise a reasonable doubt that
Ulbriicht wasn't the criminal and that's best done by presenting an
alternative culprit.

~~~
sandworm
There are no "homicide cases" in court. That might be term used by some cops
to indicate a case involving a body, but even then it is ambiguous as cops
often don't know whether the body was "killed" or whether they killed
themselves. Homicide just means a killing by someone else (suicide is not
homicide). State execution is also considered homicide even though there is no
chargeable crime.

Actual crimes from homicide range from the various types of murder,
manslaughter, felony-murder, Misdemeanor-manslaughter, negligence causing
death, vehicular manslaughter ... and others I cannot remember off the top of
my head.

I agree that weapons are a good thing to have but are far from necessary,
especially when there aren't any (murder through neglect). Motives are equally
unnecessary. Google "one-punch murder". You don't need a motive to be guilty,
unless by motive you mean "mens rea", a very different concept.

~~~
sandworm
"Voluntary manslaughter" is a killing that would otherwise be murder, but
because of a recognized mitigating factor is punished as something less. It
has all the elements of murder (killing with aforethought) but we choose not
to punish it as such. For instance: The killing was provoked.

"Involuntary manslaughter" is a totally different thing in that there is no
malice aforethought. Usually these are cased of responsible people failing to
act, such as a life guard watching someone drown who they should save.

Neither requires a motive, nor does murder.

~~~
bcgraham
I would expect that a lifeguard watching someone drown would qualify as
depraved indifference and would be tried as second-degree murder (in most US
jurisdictions).

------
josu
A slightly different take on the news from The Verge:
[http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/15/7553591/silk-road-trial-
ro...](http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/15/7553591/silk-road-trial-ross-
ulbricht-mt-gox-mark-karpeles)

------
norswap
All this talk about "reasonable doubt" reminded me of "12 Angry Men" (1), a
1957 movie that follows a jury in its deliberation of whether a man committed
murder or not. The whole movie takes place in a single room, with the 12 same
actors, yet it manages to be captivating throughout. Really a great piece of
cinema.

There's even a relevant xkcd (2).

(1)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Angry_Men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Angry_Men)
(2) [http://xkcd.com/657/](http://xkcd.com/657/)

------
ErrantX
The only chance Ulbricht seems to have at this stage, admittedly from where I
am sitting, seems to be one where his team employs "defence through
obscurity". If they can bog the trial down in technical details, question the
witness credibility, and point fingers toward others then it will distract
from harder evidence to counter.

It's a fairly common trial strategy, and sometimes it works.

------
obilgic
Both Silk Road and mt.gox were written in PHP which Mark Karpeles is fan of.

~~~
joshmn
While really valid, you also have to take into account what kind of hosting
services are provided on Tor. Of course, one could host the solution
themselves.

~~~
mculp
It was self-hosted. The only real hosting service ever on the darknet was
Freedom Hosting, and its operator got busted (for having customers who hosted
CP.)

~~~
lione
IIRC, not just for having customers who did that, but that he KNOWINGLY hosted
and let those customers use his services.

------
at-fates-hands
This has become the Tech Industries version of the OJ Trial.

As someone who followed that trial very closely, I think the coverage of this
trial has been really good.

------
jmtame
I called Mark Karpeles the DPR on Twitter and he replied "PHP is good for the
right job." He's obviously guilty.

------
svs
DPR Karpeles = DPRK = Democratic People's Republic of Korea = North Korea! I
knew the North Koreans would be somehow involved!

------
lexcorvus
Not one but _two_ (nearly identical) references to "The Princess Bride" have
been flagkilled. I understand not wanting to devolve into reddit, but is HN
really so humorless? This is life imitating art, people. In this context, such
references are 100% on-point.

 _He wasn 't the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. The real Roberts has been
retired fifteen years and living like a king in Patagonia._

~~~
krapp
It stops being funny after a while.

------
negamax
This is very interesting.

------
spiralpolitik
Are they really trying the "Chewbacca defense" ? Johnnie Cochran would be
proud.

~~~
Dylan16807
What the heck are you talking about? The defense is based on law enforcement's
own investigations pointing at a different culprit. How is that in any way
related to a defense based on confusing the jury with a non sequitur?

