NY jury preparing to decide fate of Silk Road creator
Prosecutors say a San Francisco man enabled drug dealers worldwide to reach customers they would never find on the street through the underground website Silk Road, but a defense lawyer says the 30-year-old was set up by manipulated evidence.
A jury is expected to begin deciding the fate of Ross William Ulbricht on Wednesday. Federal Judge Katherine Forrest says she'll spend a little more than an hour reading legal rules to the jury before deliberations start.
Closing arguments were completed Tuesday. Defense lawyer Joshua Dratel (dray-TEHL') says investigators arrested his client on insufficient evidence in 2013 because they were pressured to make an arrest and shut down Silk Road.
Prosecutor Timothy Howard says overwhelming evidence proves Ulbricht was the digital kingpin of an illegal online drug dealing empire.
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