its crazy to look at this old thread and know that i almost certainly left a comment in it. although ive created and left behind hundreds of accounts in the meantime. i first got on HN feb 2015 when i read an article about “famed god” getting arrested in las vegas… his shirt had “hack the world” written on it and when i googled “hack the world famed god,” not knowing about the movie reference, it gave me a HN thread about the incident. and then HN became my home for almost ten years… i didnt have facebook or instagram or vine. i literally just spent all my time on HN. now that the displacement of programmers by AI has begun, somehow my interest has waned.
at the time, the murder for hire accusations seemed legitimate and they still do today. hopefully they charge him with attempted murder if the statute of limitations isnt up.
ok. so for some reason the federal government indicted him on attempted murder in 2018(?) and for some reason the charge was dismissed… on what grounds was it dismissed? and i believe he could still be charged by the state of California or another state so hopefully we will see that
edit: this section of reasons’ article summarizes the situation nicely.
“Now that Ulbricht has no chance of having his initial conviction and sentencing overturned or adjusted, it's likely the feds out of Maryland decided the indictment no longer was needed to make sure the government had some further means in their back pocket to punish Ulbricht for showing a safer, saner way around their insanely damaging drug war.”
the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the reason he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder charge was unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view. not because he is innocent of the charge. the article also notes that torture was an element in those murders. this guy should not be walking free
Doesn't "dismissed with prejudice" usually mean something like "the evidence presented for the charge is so lacking that the charge should never have been brought in the first place"?
see my edit. i am a full supporter of letting adults have freedom to buy and use whatever drugs they want but i also think murdering and torturing people should not be allowed
> the reason the charges were dismissed is similar to the reason he wasnt charged initially: because attempted murder charge was unnecessary from the prosecutors point if view
But why were the charges dismissed with prejudice? That's not the normal way to dismiss charges.
U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur has filed a motion to dismiss the pending charges filed against Ross Ulbricht
Last week, Hur sought “to dismiss with prejudice the indictment and superseding indictment” pending against Ulbricht
in the motion that he filed, which is linked above, the reason he provides is that ross had already been sentenced and all his appeals had been denied. the motion never mentions lack of evidence or the corrupt investigators. this isnt mentioned in the freeross page
the idea that chat logs were forged or that someone else was using his account are plausible but just barely. its much more plausible that a powerful drug lord ordered hits. its practically unavoidable in the course of running a large, high volume illegal drug operation. its routine. and the feds didnt need a murder charge to screw him, not even a little bit. i havent seen enough evidence to dismiss either camp but i think it should go to trial so the public can see all the evidence and the matter can be settled. there certainly is grounds for further investigation.
>It was dismissed with prejudice, and can’t be tried again
But there were in total six murder-for-hire allegations against Ross Ulbricht. That Maryland case in your link [0] was only one of them.
That Maryland one was also a case in which Carl Force, a corrupt federal agent, was deeply involved. The New York trial which incarcerated Ulbricht avoided considering that single allegation, specifically because of the corrupt agent's involvement. [1]
(Confusingly, there were also six allegations of drug-related deaths. These were completely unrelated with the six murder allegations.)
It's notable that, in that Maryland document you linked, the US Attorney could have moved to dismiss the charge without prejudice, meaning that it could be retried, but he chose not to do that.
But he then continues, to say, without explaining why, that Ulbricht was already serving a life sentence which had been affirmed on appeal in New York. The implication is that the US Attorney is hinting that there's no point ever pursuing the 'attempted murder' angle, because Ulbricht is already locked up for life (Narrator: he was wrong).
Here's a summary
* One murder-for-hire allegation (Maryland): Indicted, but dismissed with prejudice by US Attorney
* Five murder-for-hire allegations (New York): Not indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in sentencing decision
* Six drug-related death allegations (New York): Not indicted/charged, not decided by jury, but included in sentencing decision
*
What I understand is that the New York jury was allowed to know about the attempted murder-for-hire and the drug-related death claims, but not about the corrupt federal agents.
The murder-for-hire allegations, meanwhile, were allowed to influence his sentencing (and the rejection of his appeal) due to "a preponderance of evidence" as decided by the judge, which would not be sufficient grounds for criminal convictions such as murder, which require evidence "beyond reasonable doubt".
at the time, the murder for hire accusations seemed legitimate and they still do today. hopefully they charge him with attempted murder if the statute of limitations isnt up.