Details remain scarce regarding the second arrest of corrupt Silk Road investigator Shaun Bridges, but in a new court filing, prosecutors insist that the details remain under seal—in part, because they believe he has one or more co-conspirators.
Following the trial and conviction of Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht, two federal agents, Carl Force and Shaun Bridges, were charged with stealing from the Silk Road even while they were investigating it.
Bridges used admin privileges, taken from an arrested Silk Road admin, to steal $800,000 worth of bitcoins from Silk Road drug dealers. He pled guilty last year, and in December he was sentenced to nearly six years in prison.
The massive theft is what led Ulbricht, acting as the "Dread Pirate Roberts," to allegedly commission a "hit" on his former employee. The "hitman" he hired, however, turned out to be an undercover personality operated by Force, a DEA agent.
Bridges has been in custody since his re-arrest on January 28 and sought to unseal the government's evidence so that he could defend himself, as well as get his property back. "[H]e has been denied both his freedom and his property without any showing of wrongdoing by him," Bridges complained.
In their response (PDF) filed today, prosecutors urged the judge to keep it all under seal, since they're still looking into the full extent of Bridges' crimes.
While there isn't much information in the opposition, the government does state its position that Bridges committed "a series of additional crimes, including crimes that took place both before and after the date of the entry of his guilty pleas and sentencing," (emphasis in original).
Prosecutors say evidence of additional crimes was found during a search of Bridges' house just one day before he was scheduled to self-surrender to a federal prison. Among other things, police found a passport card, corporate documents for offshore companies, and documents related to Bridges' wife's attempt to gain citizenship in another country.
"Although Bridges himself is in custody on that underlying case at present, his co-conspirator(s) remain at liberty and thus, disclosure of the details contained in the search warrant could jeopardize the new investigation," prosecutors write in today's filing.
The nature of Bridges' additional crimes are still unclear, but a February 17 filing (PDF) says that investigators became aware of "additional thefts of bitcoins from Secret Service accounts," which the government believes Bridges, "working with others," was involved in.
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