[paulhauggis]

I disagree. A person that doesn't want to harm anyone wouldn't hire (or attempt to hire) a hitman. If the agent would have been a hitman, someone might be dead.

"he never had to decide in real life"

The reason he got in trouble was because he did decide it in real life. It's not like he put a hit out on a World of Warcraft character.

"put a lot of emotional pressure on him"

Emotional pressure? really? That's an elegant way of putting it.

"He hasn't lost my goodwill yet."

It's only because you support the legalization of drugs and you are letting this cloud your judgement. He is an asshole and deserves to do some jail time.

[burger_moon]

This is similar to would-be terrorists who get honey potted by the fbi. They find people wiling to put bombs in a car and blow up a city block and they sell them the fake bombs/ equipment and then arrest them after they attempt to detonate it, some times not even getting that far.

[pakled_engineer]

Conspiracy to traffic narcotics cases are the same. A CI tells a tale of being connected to some cartel and offers to import a bunch of invisible cocaine and if you agree to it and show up with payment you're convicted without any actual drugs existing. The overt act does not even need to be completed, any action done by the accused to further the conspiracy agreement is good enough to get life in prison.

[boyaka]

Relevant story with a reddit twist, except I believe drugs did actually exist. Cool story though if you haven't heard of it.

http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/...

[darkhorn]

Whoaa!!! This is the USA? Fucked up. I don't know such things done by the police in European Union.

[pakled_engineer]

US and UK/Commonwealth countries have similar conspiracy laws where no actual drugs are needed just action on your part to further the conspiracy agreement. A gangster here in Canada actually tried to use a defense that it was his intention to rob the informant peddling invisible drugs, thus never planned to honor the conspiracy agreement as he and his henchmen showed up to the exchange with guns and not money. It didn't work because carrying out the full conspiracy isn't needed you just need any action on your part laid out in the conspiracy agreement and he had rented a truck to carry the large dope shipment as the informant had suggested.

https://www.mosesandrooth.com/drug-crimes/conspiracy-to-traf...

[q7]

The way I read about it, the FBI arrested one of this employees and made it appear as if that employee took all of his money and did not talk to Ulbricht anymore. Then the FBI created another persona that did talk to him, and waited until his hitman order. It was all part of an elaborate play.

"It's only because you support the legalization of drugs"

Oh please. Ad hominem much?