Smeared With False Allegations of Murder-for-Hire

Unproven, unprosecuted allegations of planning murder-for-hire that never actually occurred were used to deny Ross bail, smear him in the media, and justify the draconian sentence he received. Ross was never tried for or found guilty of these allegations, which were officially dismissed later in 2018. The only alleged “victim” ever identified is a fervent supporter of Ross’s clemency.

“It’s good that the charges have been dropped, but the government’s careless use of them as a media weapon to destroy Ulbricht’s reputation…ha[s] alas already done [its] damage.”
– Brian Doherty, Reason Magazine.[1]

Allegations Never Prosecuted and Dismissed

After Ross was arrested in San Francisco in 2013, he was sent to NYC for prosecution. At his bail hearing in NYC, prosecutors alleged that Ross planned murder-for-hire on six people he had never met and claimed that he was too dangerous to be granted bail.

Yet, when Ross was indicted a few months later in early 2014, the allegations were absent from the indictment.[2] Later, when Ross’s trial took place in NYC in early 2015, the murder-for-hire allegations were still absent from his charges. The NYC prosecution never charged Ross for murder-for-hire and all his charges at trial were non-violent.

Right after Ross’s arrest, prosecutors in the state of Maryland filed a separate indictment that contained the only allegation of murder-for-hire ever filed against Ross. The indictment referenced an alleged hit on Curtis Green, a Silk Road administrator (more on Curtis Green below). For nearly five years, that indictment was left untouched, unprosecuted. Eventually, in July 2018, the District of Maryland dismissed it with prejudice, meaning it can never be re-filed or used against Ross again.[3][4]

Tweet by Ross Ulbricht, July 27, 2018
DailyDot article, Oct 22, 2014
Reason article, July 25, 2018

Support from the Alleged Murder-for-Hire “Victim”

The now-dismissed, unprosecuted indictment in Maryland referenced the alleged planned “murder” of Curtis Green, a Silk Road administrator. He is the only alleged victim ever identified in the murder-for-hire allegations used against Ross. Curtis Green has publicly spoken out against the allegations and has been a vocal supporter of Ross’s clemency.

“Why are you supporting a guy who tried to kill you? And I immediately snapped back and said ‘How do you know that he tried to have me killed!? You’re just going by what the government tells you.’ I don’t believe it!”
– Curtis Green (about Ross Ulbricht)

Curtis Green's message about Ross Ulbricht and murder-for-hire allegations
Tweet by Curtis Green, alleged “victim”
Curtis Green can be seen at 0:50, 1:13, and 3:50

Corrupt Federal Agents and Multiple DPRs

“The government did not produce a single witness to testify firsthand that Ross authored any of the communications attributable to DPR. It was all digital, created and transmitted on an anonymous, untraceable internet network.”
– Joshua Dratel, Criminal Defense Attorney

It was never proven that Ross was the one who authored any of the online anonymous chats and text files the allegations relied on. There is hard evidence and testimony—even from the lead Silk Road investigator—showing that multiple people operated the top administrator account under the Dread Pirate Roberts (“DPR” for short) handle.

Corrupt agents Carl Force (left) & Shaun Bridges (right)

Unprosecuted and now dismissed, the only allegation of murder-for-hire ever filed against Ross was filed in Maryland, where rampant corruption occurred during the Silk Road investigation. The indictment was based on information provided by corrupt federal agent Carl Mark Force, who had unfettered access to Silk Road and admittedly took over accounts and “sought deliberately to undermine the integrity of the ongoing investigation.”[5][6] Carl Force and Shaun Bridges, another corrupt agent, had full admin privileges to Silk Road, meaning they could usurp control of any account, including that of DPR, and change anything in the Silk Road database, such as forum posts and chat messages.[7][8] Both Force and Bridges were sent to prison for their crimes related to the Silk Road investigation.

When the government filed a criminal complaint against Force in March 2015, it revealed that Force had “faked Curtis Green’s death,” and as with the other murder-for-hire allegations, no one was actually killed.[9][10]

In a 2018 public interview, Curtis Green revealed how his own chat logs had been manipulated, presumably by Bridges or Force.

“I went through all my old posts from me, and I didn’t write that…It looked totally foreign to me…It didn’t ring a bell…And it was all very detrimental, it made me look bad.” (52:40)

In the same interview, Green added:

“When I saw the [murder-for-hire] transcripts,” they were “[in line with Force’s] narrative, exactly what he portrayed. So was it there or did they put it there?” (55:28)

Excerpt of Curtis Green’s interview,
August 8, 2018

Sixth Amendment Violation: Uncharged Allegations Used at Sentencing

Even though the unproven, unprosecuted murder-for-hire allegations were not part of Ross’s charges at trial, the judge permitted the prosecutors to speak about those at trial, despite the defense’s protest that this would prejudice Ross’s jury.
Despite admitting this, prosecutors discussed the uncharged allegations at Ross’s trial
At sentencing, in violation of the Sixth Amendment, Ross’s judge used these unproven, uncharged allegations, that had never been submitted to, let alone ruled on by, Ross’s jury to justify her extreme sentence. This means that Ross is, in part, serving a double life sentence, plus forty years, based on now-dismissed allegations.

“The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial.”
– National Lawyers Guild and seven other organizations in support of Ross’s Supreme Court petition.[11]

This reliance on uncharged allegations by the judge during sentencing was argued in several amicus briefs from a dozen eminent organizations in support of Ross’s Supreme Court petition. Such organizations included National Lawyers Guild, Law Enforcement Action Partnership, American Conservative Union Foundation, Drug Policy Alliance, Human Rights Defense Center, and more.

References