Michael Duch

Michael Duch testified for the prosecution on Day 8 about selling drugs on Silk Road under the vendor name deezletime. He said he began buying painkillers there in October 2012 and believed he began selling in April 2013 to finance his addiction. He described seller registration, escrow, bitcoin payments, commissions, customer messages and shipping methods learned largely from the site's forums. He understood DPR to run Silk Road but did not know DPR's identity.

Duch reported 2,414 orders and 31,827 heroin bags for April through September 2013 and endorsed an estimated total weight of 3.18 kilograms. The court admitted vendor pages, shipment photographs, customer messages and transaction records, several over defense objections. Duch acknowledged preparing an adjusted-quantity column for trial and retaining customer addresses contrary to site rules.

Cross-examination on Day 8 and Day 9 addressed his incentives to cooperate and the reliability of his account. Duch disclosed his guilty plea, hoped for time served and acknowledged that no sentence was guaranteed. He accepted that the government alone would decide whether his assistance was substantial. Joshua Lewis Dratel questioned his heavy heroin use, recollection of cooperation benefits and earlier interview statements. Duch disputed suggested omissions about sales and purchases. He distinguished first drug use from renewed use after abstinence, but ultimately said he was unsure what term he had used in an interview.

Duch described separating buyer and seller accounts and using encryption. He denied that Silk Road required technical expertise, while explaining that his computer background helped him implement security measures. He agreed that online participants could not be certain of their counterparties' identities. On redirect, he clarified that requiring customers to encrypt messages and addresses was his own rule, not a marketplace requirement. He also said his earlier conviction was for failure to turn over a controlled dangerous substance to law enforcement, not possession with intent to distribute, and denied dealing before Silk Road. On recross, he estimated having about 35 heroin bags at his 2008 arrest and denied selling them. Further redirect established that these were individual glassine bags and that he estimated using about that quantity daily at the time.

In closing, Turner relied on Duch's sales testimony and database-based calculations to support requested drug-quantity findings, and on district-based sales to support venue. Dratel urged jurors not to accept Duch's account without independent corroboration, pointing to his heroin use, cooperation incentives and spreadsheets prepared for trial.