1. Although they didn't charge the attempted hits as separate crimes, they did take them into consideration when they sentenced him. His sentence was longer specifically because the judge believed there was a preponderance of evidence that he hired hitmen and intended to have five people murdered.
2. While under oath, nobody from Ross's side denied that he had hired the hits. They insisted that he was "role-playing" and didn't expect anyone to be killed. Except he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars (visible on the blockchain) to strangers after they sent him 'proof' that the hits were carried out. Proof that included random numbers that Ross provided to ensure the hits were actually carried out.
People who say Ross was a good guy are lying or are uninformed.
> Ulbricht's directed violence here is and relates to the murders for hire which he is alleged to have commissioned and paid for. The Court must determine whether these allegations have been demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence and I find that there is ample and unambiguous evidence that Ulbricht commissioned five murders as part of his efforts to protect his criminal enterprise and that he paid for these murders. There is no evidence that he was role-playing.
> The Court finds that the evidence is clear and unambiguous and it far exceeds the necessary preponderance findings, that Ulbricht believed he was paying for murders of those he wanted eliminated, and that he believed they had in fact been murdered. He was told his first victim had a wife and several children. That fact was known to Ulbricht and it is never mentioned by him in connection with his consideration of the murder. The consequences flowing from the murder of a man with his family is never, so far as the Court can tell from the record, considered.
> When he commissioned the hit on other of what he thought was one person, Tony76, he learned that Tony76 was apparently someplace -- located someplace with three other individuals. Ulbricht then agreed and paid for a hit on all four of them. There is no evidence in the record that he knew them -- these other three folks -- that he ever dealt with these three folks or had any beef with them at all. He commissioned the hit without regard to who they were, to the fact that they had a right to life. He never asked if they had families, he never expressed any concern for them at all.
> The evidence of this murderous intent and the actions specifically taken by Ulbricht to commission the hits is based on trial exhibits including Ulbricht's own journal and his chats with the individuals he hired to oversee the murders and it was not, as I have said, role-playing.
> He commissioned the hits, there is no discussion of hypotheticals, he paid actual funds. He paid hundreds of thousands of dollars which were, in fact, paid. He is told when the murders are completed, he was provided with a photo of the murder scene with random numbers that he had provided to the would-be assassins. That there had been no confirmation of any of the deaths does not eliminate the fact that he directed violence and directed the use of violence.