Ulbricht's defense begins; Ross says he will not testify in his own defense

Ulbricht's defense begins

After three weeks of listening to federal prosecutors make their case, Ross Ulbricht now has a chance to defend himself.

The U.S. government has accused Ulbricht of operating the online black market Silk Road, which became the largest marketplace to buy and sell illegal drugs on the Internet before the FBI shut it down in 2013. Ulbricht's charges include computer crimes, drug trafficking, fraud, and more. He could spend the rest of his life in prison, if convicted.

Ulbricht's defense began on Monday. Joshua Dratel, the lead defense attorney, called three character witnesses to kick off his case, each of whom have known Ulbricht personally for over 15 years.

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As always, feel free to ask anything about the trial here or at @HowellONeill


Comments


[14 Points] IMightBeDEA:

It's smart of Ulbricht not to be testifying. With the evidence against him, he would be fried by the prosecution upon cross-examination. This case is going downhill, and for as good as Dratel was supposed to be, he's made an ass out of himself. Unless he pulls out some crazy stops in the next few days of trial, or the jury just doesn't convict, I'd say Ross is pretty much toast.


[11 Points] None:

What horrifies me is that Ulbricht let his mother and father fly around the country at their own expense using up their life savings and telling everyone who'd listen that their son's not guilty for the past year or more.

His family and friends put their savings on the line SO he could have his day in court to present this steaming pile of horse shit of a defense on the premise that he was a totally innocent bitcoin trader who'd been been set up by the government and/ or Mark Karpeles/others unknown.

Why did they think that?

Has Ross been lying to his own family the entire time he was locked up?...all like: "I didn't do it mommy, help get me out. I am innocent. Get my sister Cally to fly back from her life over in Australia and put her life savings up and sell everything y'all own as well to get me out. Get the folks back in Austin to donate what they can from their hard earned honest wages! Help me!"...

The facts appear to be that Ross banged himself to rights and he put himself away for a very long time. He endangered the freedom of those loyal few who worked for him administrating his site for up to 15 hours a day by not destroying their doxx. He paid them a pittance whilst not protecting their freedom and their rights to remain anonymous - which according to him was "sacrosanct".

Ulbricht could have thrown that laptop off the Golden Gate Bridge long ago, and the hubris that went into keeping that journal and the various chat logs which detail chats like allowing Cyanide to be sold on the site is astounding.

If he has the good character that his 72 year old family friend flew from Texas to New York to testify to on the stand yesterday he'd have taken the plea deal (that was offered) long ago, and got his head down and done his time - without dragging family and friends into it and putting them through all this stress.

When you're allowing ageing family members to put themselves under all this pressure to save you and letting them relocate to Brooklyn to fight on your behalf - using their own sparse savings and selling what they own to fund your defense plus letting them spent hours of their own time helping with research etc - you'd think there'd be a damn good reason to put them through the stress of such a very public trial.

Instead we get "Ross was a great guy" as a defense. WHAT.THE.FUCK?

Mr. Ulbricht is a sociopath who concealed a dark side from everyone for years. It's a shame he couldn't drop that act once his testicles were nailed to the wall.


[7 Points] RosyPalm:

Wow, so we're almost to the end, and after all the wild speculation as to what the defense strategy was going to be it turns out the sole strategy was to point at Ross and say, "he couldn't have done it, because all his pals think he's just a swell guy."

WTF?


[3 Points] yaboobie:

plee da fif


[1 Points] ciphersexual:

Anyone know who this Bridget Prince "investigator" is?


[-5 Points] lickcunt2:

i hate when people dont testify at their own trials even if its good advice id prefer to talk with my life on the line rather than pay some over priced schmuck thats one of the problems with the american judicial system IMO is you can go on the stand and not really be given a chance to really tell your story without some asshole prosecutor using your words out of context by talking over you and only being allowed to give one word answers