Wasn’t me!
That’s the claim the accused operator of the underground black market website “Silk Road” — which peddles methamphetamine, heroin and other illicit drugs in exchange for the virtual currency Bitcoins — made in Manhattan federal court Wednesday.
“The evidence will establish that he’s not the person who the government says he is,” said lawyer Joshua Dratel after his client Ross Ulbrict had his first appearance in a New York courtroom since being busted by the FBI in his hometown of San Francisco last month in the largest-ever seizure of Bitcoins.
Dratel described Ulbrict, 29, as a “regular guy” with a clean record — and not the man the FBI believes used the workplace alias “Dread Pirate Roberts,” ostensibly based on the character in the 1987 cult film “The Princess Bride.”
“He’s a 29-year-old who is educated, basically comes from Texas and from a good family, and has a lot of friends,” said Dratel, who added that his client is in “good spirits.”
Ulbricht has yet to be arraigned on charges of computer hacking, drug trafficking and money laundering, but Dratel said he will be pleading not guilty.
“We deny the charges,” Dratel said. “To me, he’s a poster child for bail.”
Dressed in brown-and-blue prison attire and clean shaven, Ulbricht said little while appearing before a magistrate judge in Manhattan federal court. He remains in custody at the Manhattan Detention Complex after arriving in the Big Apple Tuesday night. A bail hearing is set for Nov. 21.
The investigation, more than two years long, was handled by New York feds jointly with the FBI’s cyber-crimes unit, the DEA and the IRS.
Prosecutors say Ulbricht peddled drugs on the “deep Web” from January 2011 until a month ago. Since his arrest, the feds have seized $33.6 million worth of Bitcoins.
Ulbrict is also facing an attempted murder-for-hire charge in Maryland for a botched attempt to allegedly whack one of his employees. Dratel said his client also denies this charge as well as similar a “murder-for-hire” accusation out of Canada spelled out in the “Silk Road” criminal complaint As of Sept. 23, there were 13,000 listings for drugs on the site, including for “cannabis,” “ecstasy” and “stimulants.”
There were also other listings, including 169 for “forgeries” placed by vendors offering fake driver’s licenses and other fraudulent documents and another 159 under the category of “services” that included “firearms and ammunition” and “hit men.”
Ulbricht is not without his supporters, some of whom have taken to the web to try raising money for his legal defense.
Meanwhile, a new Silk Road 2.0 launched on Wednesday. It promises to be an improved version of the anonymous black market site that the feds shut down and is being run by someone also using the alias “Dread Pirate Roberts.”