from Vice.com Jan 16, 2015
The trial of alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht took an unexpected turn Thursday when his defense team laid the blockbuster claim that Ulbricht was framed by another shadowy Bitcoin heavyweight, Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpeles.
In his opening statement Tuesday, defense attorney Joshua Dratel had posited Ulbricht, who is charged with conspiracy, money laundering, and narcotics trafficking, as a patsy who was “left holding the bag” by the real “Dread Pirate Roberts” — the pseudonymous user or users of the dark net site believed to have run it. Dratel argued that though Ulbricht founded the site in 2011 as an “economic experiment,” he soon turned over control to other individuals, adding that there could be multiple people using the Dread Pirate Roberts name on the network.
The trial will resume Tuesday, following the Martin Luther King Day holiday.