[Aurornis]

I’m kind of perplexed by the way Ross Ulbricht is held up as a hero after he was caught spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire hitmen to murder multiple people. Usually when I bring this up people try to change the subject to the FBI agent who tried to steal crypto or they suggest that there wasn’t enough evidence to support the claims (the court found that by a preponderance of the evidence he sent the messages). There are also claims that because they didn’t pursue those charges they do t “count” despite the preponderance of evidence. Some people just aren’t aware at all.

It’s a strange internet phenomenon where people seem to want him to be a folk hero and they’re willing to ignore or use mental gymnastics to wash away the fact that he was spending a lot of money to murder several people.

[ty6853]

The jury is out on whether the accounts linked to the hiring of the 'hitmen' was exclusively under the control of Ross Ulbricht.

The 'preponderance' was found by a judge, not a jury, so it's a different threshold than say demanding a jury in a civil suit where the jury would make a finding on preponderance. You effectively have a jury of one, where that jury member is highly intertwined with the same federal government that is prosecuting the crime, in a way that would surely eliminate them in voire dire for an impartial jury.

[Aurornis]

This is what I’m talking about: There was apparently a preponderance of evidence that messages were sent and money was transferred to have people killed. There was motive. There was evidence. A court reviewed it. It was introduced in a trial.

Yet there’s this desire to downplay it or wish it all away as a conspiracy against him. You have to suspend belief and assume that someone else sent the messages or that they were fabricated. It’s all really hard to believe unless you’re in the mindset that he’s a hero and you need to explain away the inconvenient parts of his history that detract from the person people wish he was.