This opinion [1] from the judge in his case indicates that the murder-for-hire evidence was admitted during his trial. The document outlines the evidence for all 6 murder for hire allegations and explains why, although not charged, the evidence is relevant to his case.

[1] https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1391...

He was found during sentencing to be guilty of hiring a hit on a competitor using a preponderance of evidence (lower then presumption of innocence). While this is a lower standard than a conviction, it is still a higher standard than most apply in public discourse.

It does not change my opinion that the sentence was well deserved in the eyes of the law. Those are all things, that independently, can lead to serious jail time. The scale of his operation was also substantial.

I don't see how that should change anyone's opinion on whether the sentence was deserved. Whether it was legally/procedurally correct, sure. Whether he didn't get the day in court he should have had, sure. But given that no-one seems to seriously dispute that he did try to pay to have the guy killed, what he deserves is a long prison sentence, and whether that's imposed by a court doing things properly, a court doing things improperly, or a vigilante kidnapper isn't really here or there on that point.

(The rule of law is important, and we may let off people who deserve harsh sentences for the sake of preserving it, but it doesn't mean they deserve those sentences any less)

Did you read my comment? I said:

> even though the charge of hiring a contract killer to assassinate his business competition may have been dropped

Just because the charge was dropped doesn't mean he's innocent of it. In fact, reading the chat logs makes his guilt pretty clear. Of course, because the whole operation was a scam, there's little he could have been convicted of. Yet just because the murder was never carried out doesn't mean he didn't intend to have someone assassinated. In my book, paying someone money to kill another person is definitely grounds for imprisonment.

Does anyone know if Ross had a jury trial and if not, why not?

The other user directly addressed that in his comment.

Couldn't you buy stuff on Silk Road that would ruin your life, like meth or heroin? If true, not exactly a victimless crime to run the site.

Honestly any time I read the procedural history of this stuff I get nerd sniped by the bizarre details and I lose track of the big picture. I feel like the whole thing could be three competing Dateline NBC style six-part crime specials and I still wouldn't get tired of it.

Ross heard that one of his Silk Roads moderators was arrested, and so he hired someone to kill the mod? The assassin sent a confirmation photo of his mod, asphyxiated and covered in Campbell's Chicken and Stars Soup?? The supposed assassin was actually a corrupt DEA agent who later served federal prison time for crimes so embarrassing that they were never fully disclosed?!?!

There is some kind of thorny moral question I cannot quite wrap my brain around.

Ross did not successfully have anyone killed, but it seems that he must have thought he was successful?

Ross (it is alleged, and chat logs seem to show) ordered someone's death and paid for it and got explicit confirmation that they were dead. [actually several someones.] Did he feel like a murderer at this point? What a fascinating, real life Raskolnikov style figure.

Later, perhaps much later, he gets strong evidence that the murder was fake. Nothing has changed in the outside world after he learns this -- the victim is no more alive before or after he learns this. Does this change his identity? Is he more or less of a murderer than before?

Do the people who kill with modified Xbox controllers from a warehouse in Las Vegas do the same kind of killing that Ross thought he did?

And then there is some kind of moral thought experiment happening at a Silicon Valley Rationalist, Effective Altruism kind of scale that I can't quite wrap my head around. Do people matter as much in person as if they're just blips on a screen you'll never meet? If Ross could have sent 1 BTC to prevent fatal malaria in a dozen young kids, thousands of miles away, but he didn't, should he feel responsible in some way for their death? Is he about equally responsible for them as for the online people he is pretty sure he ordered killed from afar, but never met?

It's just a lot. The whole story is supernaturally intense; it's hard to believe it was real. It will make for great TV.

See, e.g.

- https://www.vice.com/en/article/murdered-silk-road-employee-... for the faux forum moderator killing

- https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/silk-road-drug-vendor-w... for the other faux five killings (another scam on Ross - he thought he was having extortionists killed? he kept getting confirmations?)

[dead]

[flagged]