NEW YORK – The accused mastermind of the online black market Silk Road pleaded not guilty to a host of criminal charges Friday in federal court in New York.
Ross William Ulbricht, 29, wearing a blue prison suit for his arraignment, has denied all charges against him that he created and managed Silk Road.
Authorities claim Ulbricht is the infamous “Dread Pirate Roberts” who operated the underground site, an encrypted network that allegedly sold drugs, weapons, hacker tools and “hit” services to kill people.
US District Judge Katherine Forrest set a trial date of November 3 in the case.
The government arrested Ulbricht in October on a criminal complaint charging him with drug trafficking and related offenses.
An indictment unsealed Tuesday charged Ulbricht with money laundering and conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and with running a criminal enterprise, which carries a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison.
As part of the operation, US authorities seized a large cache of Bitcoins, a virtual currency used in Silk Road transactions.
Prosecutors say they have seized 173,991 Bitcoins, worth over $150 million at present exchange rates, in the investigation.
Authorities also filed criminal charges in January against two operators of a Bitcoin exchange, claiming they violated money laundering laws by allowing its users to buy drugs and other illicit goods on the Silk Road website.
Ulbricht was using a laptop in a San Francisco library when he was arrested on October 1 and investigators were expected to scour the machine for evidence he is indeed “Dread Pirate Roberts.” The online moniker appeared to be taken from a character in the film “The Princess Bride.”
But in November, a message saying that Silk Road was back in business turned up on a social network, signed “Dread Pirate Roberts,” or DPR. It remains unclear if the author merely assumed the title after Ulbricht’s arrest or had been running the website before.
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