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Comment by deftnerd | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the government buried this until after the Ulbricht trial was over. The fact that two of the investigators were corrupt and stealing funds could have derailed the case.

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It turns out one of them was probably on Ulbricht's payroll:

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-m...

Wow. How could Ulbricht's attorney not appeal after this is made public?

You think evidence that Ulbricht bribed someone to get intelligence on another DEA investigation is going to help him?

I mean: they'll probably appeal no matter what, because what do they have to lose at this point.

> You think evidence that Ulbricht bribed someone to get intelligence on another DEA investigation is going to help him?

Not at all!

> I mean: they'll probably appeal no matter what, because what do they have to lose at this point.

Exactly this. Sorry I wasn't clear.

It's hardly bribery if the other party isn't acting in an official capacity. Fake authority has probably been a ploy of scammers and fraudsters since they existed.

On the other hand, I'm sure theres a major problem for the government here if the guy signing seizures is doing so for his own illicit gain.

> It's hardly bribery if the other party isn't acting in an official capacity.

You can't be an officer in a case and not be acting in an official capacity at the same time. It's not like you go home at 17:00 sharp and then turn around to the people that you just spent time with as an official and pretend that didn't happen.

The Ulbricht case that went to trial was a different investigative team. [e.g. These agents were not involved]

> The charges stem from the agents’ role in one of the federal investigations into Silk Road; a separate Manhattan-based investigation ultimately led to the filing of charges against the website’s founder, Ross W. Ulbricht, who was convicted last month on numerous counts. The website was also shut down by the authorities.

> The Baltimore investigation resulted in an indictment of Mr. Ulbricht on a charge of murder for hire, but that case has remained pending and the evidence in support of it was kept out of the New York trial, apparently because of the investigation into the agents.

However, I'm pretty sure the "murder for hire" trial is going to die quietly because of these agents.

Yes, it's unheard of for agents in a "different investigative team" (that, BTW, happens to be involved in shaking down suspects) to, say, provide illegally obtained evidence to their coworkers. The government is very strict about tracking the source of evidence so it can be turned over to the defense; otherwise it'd be a clear Brady violation. They could face as much as a light chastizement from a federal judge!

http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/epidemic_of_brady_vio...

Is there some link you can point us to suggesting that that's happened in this case? There are 113,000 employees at DOJ, so, statistically, every case is always going to be one or two hops away from some kind of malfeasance somewhere, right?

Your comment is disingenuous. The case was not "one or two hops away" from malfeasance, it was the subject of said malfeasance. The fact that neither of the bad actors testified in court, and that they may have been working in a separate office does not change this.

It's disingenuous to ask if the "tainted" investigation is actually linked to the one that produced Ulbricht's conviction?

In that case we talk about very close investigations. So the chances of cross contamination are higher, IMO. And IIRC we still have no idea how the server was found in the first place.

If the complaint is "the DOJ routinely hides evidence and engages in corrupt behavior", it isn't exactly a counterargument to say "but you're always near some corruption at the DOJ, and besides, the DOJ hasn't released any evidence that they're not to be trusted".

It is entirely likely, a priori, that there will be abuses in a system where violations of the law are, to a close approximation, unpunished, it is to their great professional benefit to violate the law, and it is to their great professional benefit to ignore violations of the law by their coworkers. Nothing in this indictment makes me revise that opinion downwards.

Besides which, these agents in particular have a pattern (according to the indictment) of initiating investigations against targets who had become obstacles to their corruption.

There are over 100,000 employees at DOJ, and it would be an extraordinary claim to suggest that enough of them are corrupt to make this kind of corruption routine. It might be true, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Note that because of selection bias, links to Brady stories probably don't constitute "extraordinary" evidence.

>> [e.g. These agents were not involved]

i.e. not e.g.

That hadn't even occurred to me. Is that something that prosecutors can even do? It seems legally and ethically suspect, but prosecutors seem to be unaccountable when it comes to that sort of tactic.

I can imagine the prosecutors pretending it's not material because it's an "ongoing investigation" (that's purposely paused until the trial finishes), but it would be very interesting to know the complete timeline and see how it meshes with that of the Ulbricht trial.

If the agents are convicted, you'd think Ulbricht's lawyer could appeal to have his conviction overturned...

Except these agents were a separate investigation and their evidence wasn't included in the trial.

It's relevant though. Missing information is just as important as provided information when it comes to the law. That's what they mean when they say the whole truth.

Only if the missing evidence is exculpatory.

If Officer A arrests you for a DUI and speeding on Day X...the actions of Officer B on Day Y for a separate DUI case is irrelevant.

The "missing information" as you put it, is related to a murder-for-hire trial that is separate from the Ulbricht-ran-Silk-Road trial.

Even if they are not convicted, these charges are more than enough to appeal the entirety of the case against Ulbricht.

As someone with direct experience with police corruption (I will save the story for some other time), I hope like heck he gets relief from his conviction due to these stunning revelations.

I don't claim to know all the details or connections between these rotten agents and the non-rotten ones, but to be honest, I don't think it matters much.

The actors in power have to be held to a much higher standard of conduct than the criminals do, and just the appearances of these perhaps illegal behaviors should cast grave doubt over the entire case.

This was pretty deliberately buried, yes. I've been going through the evidence exhibits for the trial, and in retrospect, knowing what I know now, it's remarkable how carefully chosen exhibits are to hide all the traces on Ulbricht's end: for example, due to redaction failures, we know all the mentions of French Maid were scrubbed by prosecution; his journal is carefully chosen to start after Chronicpain was busted and used to rob SR1 accounts; the failed extortion attempt using the name 'A.A.' is partially redacted so it sounds like an isolated incident; and so on.

What do you mean by buried? I think it's fairly obvious why the prosecutor would choose not to present this evidence if the case could be made without it. The prosecution isn't required to present everything at trial.

I guess there's the question of whether the prosecution provided it to the defense or not, though I'm not sure how that would help. Ulbricht was sticking with the claim he wasn't running the site at the time, no? Seems irrelevant that some bad agents stole from the site he wasn't running.

What difference would it have made?

I would assume just media wise

Any evidence these 2 agents provided would be regarded as unreliable.

What evidence did these 2 agents provide?

For one thing, the entire Maryland hitman case collapses if you can't use anything Force touched, because he ran it from start to finish as Nob.

No doubt the case they were working is probably tanked, but my question was meant to be pointed more towards the trial that's already happened, where evidence has been presented (past tense).

It would cast a shadow of doubt over any and all evidence that these now discredited agents were involved in collecting and any testimony they made or influenced.

IANAL, so hopefully someone more knowledgeable will chime in, but if you can show in court that a witness has comitted a crime you can show that they are not trustworthy and essentially impeach their testimony.

There was so much evidence against Ulbricht that it probably wouldn't have changed the outcome, but the fact that this is only now being brought to light is very suspicious.

They were part of a separate case against Ulbricht. The one he was convicted on wasn't based on their evidence and/or testimony.

Trials have to prove someone is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. If agents involved in the investigations were caught misbehaving, that may very well add doubt to the validity of the investigation's results. Or at least it could delay the trial while the results are re-evaluated.

Well, I took a high school civics class too, but I don't see these guys as having been central to the case against Ulbricht at all.

I didn't (nor do I see what high school has to do with the most basic principle defining a state of law). And I didn't say they were central to the case, either.

But depending on the lawyers and the judge, this could have been used to construct something that would have affected either the progress or the outcome of the trial.

It's entirely philosophical anyway.

> I didn't (nor do I see what high school has to do with the most basic principle defining a state of law).

It was my way of trying to suggest that, like everyone with a modicum of education in the United States, I'm aware of the principle that accused persons are innocent until proven guilty in US law, and you didn't really need to point it out to me like it was something I hadn't thought of.

Ulbricht can still appeal on this basis, no?

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