Jury finds Silk Road founder guilty

Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the illegal online commerce site Silk Road, has been found guilty of all charges by a US jury. ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ faces a minimum of thirty years in prison and a maximum of life in prison.

It took the jury in the American courtroom 3.5 hours to reach a guilty verdict, which is relatively short according to Wired. The Silk Road founder was found guilty on all seven counts on which Ulbricht was charged. This includes charges normally reserved for drug network leaders and other criminal groups. It is not yet known what punishment Ulbricht will receive; the court must consider this. In addition, Ulbricht’s lawyer has indicated that he will appeal.

According to the jury, it is established that Ulbricht managed the site under the name Dread Pirate Roberts and was therefore the ‘leader’ of the illegal trading place Silk Road. The site was only accessible via Tor and a lot of drugs were traded. Previously, Ulbricht confessed that he founded Silk Road, but that he had quickly relinquished the reins. Ulbricht claimed that the site’s new administrators wanted to put the blame on him. In doing so, he accused Mark Karpeles, the boss of the now defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, of being the leader of Silk Road. The jury did not agree with those charges.

Silk Road was dismantled in October 2013. Ulbricht was arrested when he logged into the marketplace admin panel with his own laptop in a library. After Silk Road was taken offline, several copycats followed, such as Silk Road 2.0, several of which have since been taken offline. Initially, Ulbricht was also suspected of plotting to kill people who would have wanted to reveal his identity, but he was not prosecuted.