[ddalex]

Are you suggesting that FBI actually forced him to contract a hitman? My understanding is that FBI set up the bait and this guy eat it hook and all. It is not illegal or even immoral to bait somebody, there was no pressure, FBI presented the opportunity and this guy wanted to have somebody killed.

[w14]

It's certainly viewed as immoral at the very least in the UK.

"In R v Looseley; Attorney General's Reference (No 3 of 2000) [2002] 1 Cr. App. R. 29, the House of Lords held that although entrapment is not a substantive defence in English law, where an accused can show entrapment, the court may stay the proceedings as an abuse of the court's process or it may exclude evidence pursuant to Section 78 PACE 1984 ...

"Police conduct which brings about state-created crime is unacceptable and improper, and to prosecute in such circumstances would be an affront to the public conscience."

- https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/abuse-process

[q1w2]

Entrapment is when you motivate someone to commit a crime that they would not have otherwise committed.

In this case, this guy went looking for a contract killer and the police answered his request.

[missingrib]

He would not have committed the crime if the FBI hadn't set up the fake persona that was allegedly going to get caught and get Ulbright arrested and charged with a life sentence.

[ddalex]

Lies of the police doesn't constitute entrapment - only forcibly coercion does. Nobody forced Ulbright to hire an assassin - they only lied to him, but his decision stands none the less.

[deadly_syn]

Iirc there was some coercion component to it too. The set up was the hells angels were gonna kill the dude anyways and told him if they didnt most of silkroad probably get caught/deanonymised /arrested. Considering the other claims of potential corruption, id say that classifies as an existential threat scenerio entirely created by law enforcement to coarce him into hiring the assassins as a "now or never, life or death" of ross and his customers situation.

Not anything damning either way, bit definitely food for thought.

[slim]

I can easily see the fbi agents convincing him that his life was threatened by the 5 guys, offering to kill them, providing a contact for the hitman which is also an undercover fbi agent, then share the $750000