In Wired Andy Greenberg writes that the Preet Bharara's team prosecuting the Silk Road case wants to bar the Jury from being exposed to the only interview done with the Dread Pirate Roberts of the Silk Road. The interview done by Andy Greenberg for Forbes is notable for sounding to Department of Homeland Security agents a lot like Mark Karpelès and containing a number of answers from the Dread Pirate Roberts which supports the argument presently being advanced by the defense that in spite of founding the Silk Road and being caught holding the bad for the Silk Road Ulbricht had little to do with the Silk Road for most of its history.

Of course the present situation in which the defense has to acknowledge any involvement in the Silk Road is the result of a questionable pre-trial order which left the FBI's mystery meat search of the Silk Road servers admissible without any intelligible disclosure of the methods of the search. This present defense strategy wherein some level of admission to playing a role in the Silk Road on Ulbricht's part is a necessary consequence of the pre-trial orders.

Somewhat surprising though is that these pre-trial orders have lead to the defense presenting and an extraordinarily credible narrative which further incriminates Mark Karpelès as a disfiguring lipoma during the period where he imposed himself on Bitcoin. It raises serious questions as to what sort of deals Karpelès might have made with various agencies of the United States Government in 2013, or perhaps still earlier. Inadvertently through these pre-trial orders Judge Katherine Forrest may have offered Bitcoin one of its best presents for this early part of 2015. Hopefully she allows the defense to continue along the line of exonerating Ulbricht from much of the Silk Road's legacy by continuing to implicate Karpelès, and may Ulbricht have the best of luck in Appellate court which almost seems a certain outcome in the event of a guilty verdict given the course set pre-trial.

Update: Judge Forrest ruled that much of the DHS agent's testimony last week concerning Karpelès is inadmissable as "hearsay" in spite of this being Ulbricht's trial and not Karpelès' trial.