The alleged mastermind behind the notorious Silk Road online marketplace maintained his innocence in court on Tuesday, asserting, through his lawyer, that while he started the site, he turned over all operations to other parties shortly thereafter.
In the weeks to come, government prosecutors will have to convince a jury in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that defendant Ross Ulbricht is, in fact Dread Pirate Roberts – an anonymous handle for the person, or group of people – who facilitated more than $1.2 billion in sales of unlawful and illegal goods on Silk Road from January 2011 until October 2013.
For opening arguments, Ulbricht’s lawyer, Joshua Dratel, asserted that the defendant started Silk Road as an experiment, but handed off operations a few months later when running the site became too stressful, according to press reports.
Those who did subsequently run the underground marketplace lured Ulbricht back in order to become an unsuspecting fall guy. Ulbricht was “left holding the bag” by real operators of the Silk Road website, according to Dratel, the Associated Press reported.
Speaking for the prosecution, assistant US attorney Timothy Howard portrayed Ulbricht as anything but an unsuspecting rube, but rather a mastermind who set the rules “like a traditional drug boss” for those who sold illicit goods on the site, the AP reported.
Witness
The prosecutors plan to set forth evidence that allegedly directly ties Ulbricht to Dead Pirate Roberts, including a witness who will say that Ulbricht bragged about running Silk Road well after it had become successful, according to Wired.
Texas resident Ulbricht was indicted last February, after being arrested in October 2013 in California. At the time of his arrest, Ulbricht was charged with narcotics conspiracy, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and money laundering. Both the charges of narcotics and engaging in a criminal enterprise have maximum penalties of lifetime imprisonment.
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