Agent in Ulbricht Case Gets Another Two Years

Agent in Ulbricht Case Gets Another Two Years

The case of Ross Ulbricht is a now infamous and – for many – deeply troubling one. The guy behind the Silk Road marketplace is currently serving life in prison without the possibility of parole having exhausted all avenues of potential appeal. Whether Ulbricht will, in fact, spend the rest of his days in prison remains to be seen but all signals suggest that is going to be the case.

So why is this news today?

Well, one of the outlying features of the Ulbricht case was rooted in the fact that the government side of the investigation wasn't as squeaky clean as it should have been. Quite the opposite.

Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges, who was initially in charge of going undercover to try and figure out what Ulbricht was doing and how he was doing it, was – mid-trial – charged with stealing up to 1600 Bitcoins and systematically withdrawing them from an account at now defunct exchange BTC-E into various wallets owned and controlled by himself.

He was initially jailed for the above government defrauding charge and was sentenced to six years in jail for his crime. The latest news is that these six years have been extended by two years and Bridges will now spend a total of eight years in prison in the US. That's a far cry from the life imprisonment without possibility of parole that Ulbricht received and it is a decision that will likely incense those fighting for Ross's release. 

US District Judge Richard Seeborg had this to say about the latest sentence increase:

“Particularly troubling is the fact that Mr. Bridges did engage in further efforts to conceal and need to steal after he had entered the plea agreement.”

For Ross's sake, let's hope this isn’t the last we hear about this whole situation.