Silk Road Judge: I Won’t Reveal Witnesses Because Ulbricht Could Have Them Killed

Ross Ulbricht. Courtesy Ulbricht family

When alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht’s trial begins in less than a month, he’ll face charges of narcotics conspiracy, money laundering, and computer fraud—not murder. But the specter of violence is creeping into Ulbricht’s trial nonetheless. The prosecution and judge in his case have now refused to let him know which witnesses will be testifying against him for fear that he might orchestrate their killing from his jail cell.

In response to a request from prosecutors, New York district court judge Katherine Forrest has allowed prosecutors to keep a list of their witnesses in Ulbricht’s case secret until January 2, the Friday just before his trial begins on the following Monday morning. Her ruling followed a request from the prosecution to redact certain names from the full list to reduce the risk of “harm and intimidation.” They cited the FBI’s account that Ulbricht paid for the murders of six people, including at least one employee who he feared would inform on him to law enforcement. In a letter explaining her decision, Forrest wrote that she was “in no position to find that [those murder-for-hire allegations] are baseless or that witnesses who are known to be preparing to testify against defendant would not be at risk of some retaliatory act.”

Ulbricht’s defense attorneys had objected to the prosecution’s request to keep the witness list secret, arguing that it would make preparing Ulbricht’s defense far more difficult. They also noted that Ulbricht has been jailed “without email and has extremely limited access to the outside world.”

But Forrest wrote in her response that despite his imprisonment, Ulbricht might nonetheless reach contacts who could threaten witnesses. “While defendant has limited access to the outside world, that has been true of many defendants in many cases who have creatively managed around such limitations,” she wrote.

Ulbricht’s defense lawyer Joshua Dratel declined to comment on the judge’s decision.

The accusations of murder-for-hire in Ulbricht’s case have become a controversial albatross around the 30-year-old defendant’s neck: despite describing how Ulbricht allegedly attempted to pay for the murders of six people in pre-trial documents, prosecutors haven’t actually charged Ulbricht with those murders. Nor have they produced any evidence that anyone was actually killed. He has, however, been charged with attempting to pay for the killing of his alleged Silk Road employee Curtis Clark Green in a separate case in Maryland—the hitman to whom he allegedly paid $80,000 was an undercover DEA agent.

When Ulbricht was first arrested in October of last year, prosecutors’ claims of his violent acts quickly eroded his popular support among Silk Road’s thousands of users and much of the libertarian community. His alleged persona in the Silk Road’s community forums, by contrast, had encouraged only victimless crime like drug use, and advocated a nonviolent free market philosophy. Ulbricht’s lawyers and family have argued that the alleged killings without formal charges were intended to taint his reputation.

“This is…an uncharged crime, which conveniently requires no proof but goes a long way to prejudice a jury (and the public),” reads a blog post on FreeRoss.org, a website created by Ulbricht’s family and friends. “Basically the prosecution wants [to] smear Ross’ reputation without having to prove anything.”

Despite leaving murder-for-hire out of its charges, the prosecution in the New York case has countered that the murder accusations fall within the broader charge of a narcotics conspiracy. But the defense has repeatedly sought to have discussion of the murder-for-hire cases precluded from the trial. “The mere mention of the ‘murder for hire’ allegations would improperly introduce the toxic issue of violence and murder, generating [irremediable] prejudice to Mr. Ulbricht,” reads the defense’s latest motion filed earlier this week.

Judge Forrest has yet to rule on that motion. In the mean time, those murder accusations will continue to weigh on Ulbricht’s reputation—and keep his defense in the dark.