6.Jared Der-Yeghiayan — Direct (Part 1)
571 linesMR. TURNER: The government calls HSI Homeland Security Investigator, Jared Der-Yeghiayan.
(Witness sworn)
THE COURT: Please be seated and it will be important that you speak clearly and slowly into the microphone and I see you have water there already.
Thank you. Mr. Turner, you may proceed.
MR. TURNER: Thank you.
THE COURT: You may want to back up the podium a little bit more so that you're not in front of the jury like that.
MR. TURNER: Thank you, your Honor.
THE COURT: There you go. Terrific. Sorry, we hadn't arranged that beforehand. Thank you very much. Perfect.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN, called as a witness by the Government, having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: Agent Der-Yeghiayan, who is your employer?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I work for Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration Customs Enforcement.
MR. TURNER: What is Homeland Security Investigations?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's the investigative branch of Homeland Security.
MR. TURNER: How is Homeland Security Investigations commonly referred to?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's referred to as HSI.
MR. TURNER: So what's your title at HSI?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'm a special agent.
MR. TURNER: How long have you been a special agent with HSI?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Since 2010.
MR. TURNER: And where are you currently assigned?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'm assigned right now to Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
MR. TURNER: Chicago O'Hare International Airport?
MR. TURNER: What are your duties there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: My duties include current investigations that are related to immigration customs crimes such as human smuggling, narcotics smuggling, IPR, which is different rights violations for trade mostly.
MR. TURNER: So how long have you been assigned to work at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I've been assigned at O'Hare, well, since 2010, I started with HSI.
MR. TURNER: And you said -- you've been an HSI special agent since 2010?
MR. TURNER: And how about before that, any prior law enforcement experience?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I was also a CBP officer, Customs and Border Protection Officer at Chicago O'Hare.
MR. TURNER: When did you do that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I started around 2003. I was hired on by Immigration Naturalization Service INS inspector, which turned into Customs Border Protection.
MR. TURNER: How about after that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: After O'Hare, I was also assigned as a counterterrorism response worker in 2005.
MR. TURNER: And after that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: And then also I was assigned as a narcotic rover at Chicago O'Hare.
MR. TURNER: Explain what a narcotic rover means.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There's officers that are designated at the airport to try to find narcotics that are being smuggled through.
MR. TURNER: So how long have you been at O'Hare International Airport as a law enforcement officer in some capacity?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Since 2003.
MR. TURNER: Are you familiar with the website known as the Silk Road?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I am.
MR. TURNER: And did there come a time when you opened up an investigation of the website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: When was that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was October 2011.
MR. TURNER: And how did your work at the airport at Chicago O'Hare lead you to open an investigation of the Silk Road website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: We also cover, as part of O'Hare, there's a mail unit that's assigned to the grounds that's an international mail unit, so we were getting in and receiving lots of drugs that were coming in through the mail through letter class mail, unusual drugs.
MR. TURNER: So O'Hare is an international airport, right?
MR. TURNER: So in addition to receiving passengers from foreign countries, does any international mail come through O'Hare International Airport?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it does.
MR. TURNER: Where does that mail come from?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It comes from various countries from international carriers.
MR. TURNER: What do you mean international carriers?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's -- so it would be the -- an airline that's operated by a foreign government bringing in the mail.
MR. TURNER: So, an airline from, let's say, the Netherlands what would that be?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: From the Netherlands, that would be KLM airlines.
MR. TURNER: And they bring in the Netherlands' mail?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, they do.
MR. TURNER: After a plane lands at O'Hare International Airport, after an international flight lands, what happens to the mail?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The mail that is on the plane is then taken off the airfield and taken over to the inspection area, which is in the mail unit.
MR. TURNER: And who inspects it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The Customs Border Protection officers.
MR. TURNER: What do they inspect it for?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They search for various things, again, a lot of trade violations, anything that violates pretty much U.S. law that's being imported.
MR. TURNER: How do they inspect it generally?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Usually with x-rays and with a canine detection dogs.
MR. TURNER: Any warrant required to do that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, there's no warrant required.
MR. TURNER: Why not?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There's a border search authority --
MR. DRATEL: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There's a border authority that officers have that they don't need a warrant to search incoming mail coming in.
MR. TURNER: So what happens if contraband is found in incoming international mail?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: If contraband is discovered, the officers will seize it and it will be documented.
MR. TURNER: And what involvement, if at all, do you yourself have in searching incoming international mail at O'Hare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: As assigned as a special agent to O'Hare, I will -- if there's a narcotic seizure, generally we're notified by Customs Border Protection to investigate the seizure.
MR. TURNER: So tell us about the mail seizures that eventually led you to open an investigation of the Silk Road website.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was -- while I was assigned or I would take -- make routine trips to the mail unit to pick up various things that either the officers would seize and also to look at the various things that were suspicious that might lead to investigation, and while I was there one day, an officer brought to my attention --
MR. TURNER: What time frame is this?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This is approximately June 2011. An officer brought to my attention several --
MR. DRATEL: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Hold on one second. Overruled.
MR. TURNER: Without telling me anything the officer said, what did you see when you went to the mailroom?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I saw there was packages, there was mail envelopes from the Netherlands containing ecstasy pills in them.
MR. TURNER: How many ecstasy pills?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Each envelope, there were multiple envelopes, and they contained one or two pills per envelope.
MR. TURNER: And how were they packaged?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They were packaged in -- it was almost like a commercial-like envelope that also had -- they tried to conceal the drugs inside by wrapping it up in vacuum seal and foil.
MR. TURNER: What was unusual, if anything, about this drug seizure?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was unusual for me because I hadn't -- we haven't seen ecstasy being seized in the mail or in letter class like that in a lot of years, ever since I started pretty much at O'Hare.
MR. TURNER: And what was unusual, if anything, about the packaging the drugs were contained in?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It seemed like they went to unusual steps to try to mask it, to hide it from detection, and it looks like they also -- it was commercialized in the sense that it had sticker labels on it that were printed and there was also similarities in it, too, so the multiple envelopes shared the same characteristics, outer characteristics.
MR. TURNER: So before this, when you had seen drugs seized at the international mail at O'Hare --
MR. DRATEL: Objection; leading a little too much.
THE COURT: Why don't you rephrase.
MR. TURNER: Before this, what sort of packaging had you seen drugs come in at O'Hare International Airport?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Generally with letter-class mail, you'd see it in the way that it would -- it would usually just be, like, a single occurrence. It would be in an envelope that would be almost personalized in the sense most of the time. The commercial stuff does come in every once in a while larger shipments, but the smaller stuff with just one or two pills in a commercial type of appearance was unusual because normally you would have handwriting outside the envelope versus printed sticker labels, and it wouldn't be multiple envelopes all addressed to different people across the entire United States.
MR. TURNER: Was this seizure of ecstasy in June 2011 an isolated incident or were -- did more seizures follow?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were more seizures to follow.
MR. TURNER: How do you know that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Because I asked -- I kept on monitoring the seizures that were at the airport and at the mail unit that were coming in.
MR. TURNER: And these seizures that you noticed coming in, was this from one country in particular or were there different countries whose mail you were monitoring?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: In the beginning of the investigation, it was just primarily the Netherlands. After that, it did turn into other countries that we found the same stuff in other countries' mail as well.
MR. TURNER: So what did you notice about the number of seizures being made from the mails? Did they stay the same over time or increase or decrease?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The numbers were increasing consistently. Pretty much every month, they would go up in volume.
MR. TURNER: And what did you notice about the types of drugs being seized from the mail? Was it just ecstasy or did that change as well?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: In the same type of envelopes that we were seizing that appeared commercialized, we started seeing more than just ecstasy. We saw the drug that's commonly used in ecstasy, which is MDMA. We found it in powder and crystal form. We also found LSD. We found cocaine. We found heroin, as well as several other Schedule I and II narcotics.
MR. TURNER: Just could you clarify what do you mean by Schedule I and Schedule II.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a classification for drugs as far as medical use goes that's designated by the government: Schedule I being no medical use and Schedule II having very limited medical use.
MR. TURNER: So, do you see the binder of exhibits that's in front of you?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I do.
MR. TURNER: Can you turn to what's been marked as government Exhibit 100A in that exhibit book.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Okay.
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize this -- is it one page or a set of pages?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: A set of pages.
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize these pages?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: What are they? How do you recognize them?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: These are photographs that I took.
MR. TURNER: What are they photographs of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's photographs of a seizure that we made of drugs at the mail unit.
MR. TURNER: The government offers Government Exhibit 100A into evidence.
MR. DRATEL: Just note our objection.
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 100A is received.
(Government's Exhibit 100A received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Would you publish government Exhibit 100A.
MR. TURNER: Could you walk us through these pages and tell us what they show, first, what are we seeing on the screen here?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The first image is -- this is the -- it's the piece of paper that was discovered inside the envelope that's behind it, which was a seizure that was paid from the Netherlands.
MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, this monitor is not working. It says no signal. There's something that might have been disconnected.
THE COURT: Maybe from the noise we were having earlier.
(Pause)
MR. TURNER: I'll get back to that in a minute. When was this photo taken?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This photo was taken December 4, 2011.
MR. TURNER: By the way, is that marked anywhere on the exhibit itself?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it is. It's marked on one of the pages in the image properties.
MR. TURNER: So the jury can see that, go to page six please, zoom in. Can you go back to page one.
So this envelope, first of all, tell me about the return address.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The return address label in the left-hand corner says studyabroad.com. It was presented like a business.
MR. TURNER: Did you look up that website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: And what did you find there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It didn't have the logo. It wasn't a website for what was advertised with the same address from the knowns.
MR. TURNER: What did you find inside the package?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Inside was -- it was ecstasy pills.
MR. TURNER: And what kind of paper was it wrapped in?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: So there was a piece of paper inside and inside that piece of paper was a silver foil, the silver foil was all vacuum-sealed and there was a number 3 written on the outside of it. And then once you cut into the silver foil, there were multiple Ziploc baggies that were wrapped around a cotton-like material.
MR. TURNER: Could you go to the next page.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Next page, please. And then when cutting into the cotton-like material you can -- there's three pills, white pills inside of it. Next page. And then these are the pills that were discovered inside the packaging that had a speaker logo on it.
MR. TURNER: And did you do any test on the pills to determine what substance they contained?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I field-tested it; yes.
MR. TURNER: What do you mean by field-test?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There's a field test, a chemical test that we can perform on suspected drugs; and it would react in a way that it would let you know generally the consistencies of a certain drug.
MR. TURNER: And the paper here, what did it say that you found inside?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The paper itself was labeled the Candy Shop and it said don't forget the feedback.
MR. TURNER: Could you take a look at what's been marked as Government Exhibit 100C, please. Do you recognize -- do you recognize these documents?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: How do you recognize them?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a photograph I took.
MR. TURNER: What is it a photograph of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'm sorry?
MR. TURNER: What is it a photograph of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a photograph, while at the mail unit, of packages that we were -- that I recovered out of the Netherlands mail.
MR. TURNER: The government offers Government Exhibit 100C.
MR. DRATEL: The same objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Why don't you establish the time frame.
MR. TURNER: When was the photo taken?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The photo was taken on December 8, 2011.
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 100C is received.
(Government's Exhibit 100C received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Can you publish the exhibit.
What are these envelopes?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: These are envelopes that I recovered from the Netherlands' mail that we had either already found drugs in similar-style envelopes in the past, recognized them and also other ones that were suspicious.
MR. TURNER: Did you actually examine the contents of all of these envelopes?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: What were they found to contain?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They were found to contain various drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines.
MR. TURNER: And over how many days were these envelopes seized?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This was just one day.
MR. TURNER: So how typical was it by the time you took this picture that you'd be seizing this many packages in a given day?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This is pretty standard early on when we started the investigation that we'd start out by seizing quantities such as this.
MR. TURNER: So what did you do with all these letters that you were seizing from the incoming mail at O'Hare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The letters themselves, the drugs would be seized and also the envelopes would be seized and we were holding and maintaining them as evidence.
MR. TURNER: Who maintained the envelopes?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: HSI did.
MR. TURNER: And were you involved in preserving them?
MR. TURNER: Where is that evidence now?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That evidence is stored in a vault, an HSI vault in Chicago.
MR. TURNER: Can you take a look at Government Exhibit 104. Do you recognize this document?
MR. TURNER: How do you recognize it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I took this photograph.
MR. TURNER: When was it taken?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was taken approximately two months ago.
MR. TURNER: And what is this a picture of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a photograph of all the envelopes that we seized during the course of this investigation.
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, the government offers Government Exhibit 104 into evidence.
MR. DRATEL: Same objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: When you say all of the envelopes that were received, what I see is something more akin to boxes. Is it your testimony that these boxes were full of envelopes?
THE COURT: Were they full -- were there two or three envelopes in the boxes or was it just an envelope in the box that was actually packed full?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Each box, your Honor, was filled with numerous envelopes. And on the outer side of them, it's very hard to see on the image, but there's the number of the individual seizures on the outside. So each box can contain approximately about 100 envelopes or more.
THE COURT: How do you know each of these boxes contained envelopes in the manner you've suggested?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I put them in the boxes.
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 104 is received.
(Government's Exhibit 104 received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Can you publish the exhibit, Mr. Evert.
So how many letters approximately are in all these boxes?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Approximately 3600.
MR. TURNER: And during what time period were these seizures made?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This was from October 2011 through April 2013.
MR. TURNER: And how did this volume of drug seizures compare to the volume of drug seizures in the O'Hare mail in years past?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Once these seizures started, our numbers were higher than any previous year.
MR. TURNER: How much higher are you talking about?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thousands higher.
MR. DRATEL: Objection with respect to personal knowledge.
THE COURT: In connection with your duties and responsibilities, why don't you connect up what information he had in the past and therefore what the comparison is based on?
MR. TURNER: Sure.
MR. TURNER: You mentioned before that you were a narcotics rover in Chicago O'Hare Airport for some time?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I was.
MR. TURNER: And after that, what did you do?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I also was an intel officer for a few months and then my time at CBP.
MR. TURNER: And that covered what time period?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That was from 2008 through 2010.
MR. TURNER: And the narcotics rover duties covered what time period?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That started 2008.
MR. TURNER: Go ahead.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: And went through early 2009.
MR. TURNER: And throughout that time period, did you -- what involvement did you have in monitoring the narcotics seizures being made at O'Hare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Part of my duties were also to research, analyze and examine seizures that were happening at O'Hare. That included anything that was being seized in the entire airport, if it's ecstasy or if it's any other serious drug.
MR. TURNER: So from that experience, do you know how this volume of seizures that you were making at the O'Hare International mail during this time represented in the boxes compared to years past?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: And so how did it compare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: These were -- it was a complete higher increase of seizures. We didn't have hardly any seizures of ecstasy in years past and this was something that was -- we never seen before.
MR. TURNER: At some point while you were making these seizures, did you learn about the Silk Road website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Without telling me what you heard about it, approximately when did you hear about -- did you first hear about the Silk Road website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was approximately late September, early October, 2011.
MR. TURNER: Did you see that website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Generally, what did you find there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I found it was a market that was similar to an online market that was similar to, like, Amazon, for instance, that had items for sale that were mostly illegal in nature that I could see, drugs and various other things.
MR. TURNER: And was there any way to see visually what the drugs looked like that were being sold on the Silk Road?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, there was.
MR. TURNER: How?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were images that were on the website posted near all the listings.
MR. TURNER: I'm going to ask you a lot more questions about Silk Road later, but for now, I'm going to ask what links were you able to make, if any, between Silk Road and the drugs you were seizing at O'Hare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: We were, during the course of the investigation, we were able to link many of the seizures that we were making there to various vendors on Silk Road throughout a variety of means if it was just comparative of the actual drug we saw, that we seized and matching up the actual drug to what was being seen online and from the same countries, for instance. So, with the Netherlands mail that we primarily started seizing with, it had particular ecstasy pills that -- with certain logos on it and certain colors for the pill and those exact same pills were being advertised from sellers on Silk Road that were from the Netherlands.
And so using that, and then also conducting undercover purchases to try to match up the envelopes that we were seizing at -- through the mail unit, we were able to draw conclusions that it came from Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: So can you take a look at Government Exhibit 102D, please.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: 102D, Delta?
MR. TURNER: "D" as in Delta.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Okay.
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize the pages in this exhibit?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: What do they consist of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It consists of a photograph that I took as well as images that I captured, as well as screen shot I took.
MR. TURNER: When you say images that you captured, what do you mean by that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I retrieved an image, saved an image from a website.
MR. TURNER: Which website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: The government offers Government Exhibit 102D into evidence.
MR. DRATEL: Previously -- can we have a line objection. If I have something different --
THE COURT: Yes, yes. Thank you.
Government Exhibit 102D is received.
(Government's Exhibit 102D received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Can you publish page one of the exhibit, Mr. Evert.
Is this the same thing you saw before?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it is.
MR. TURNER: What's on -- these are the three ecstasy pills, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. TURNER: And they have the Candy Shop logo inside?
MR. TURNER: So can you go to page two of the exhibit. And what does this page reflect?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This was an image that I retrieved from the Silk Road website.
MR. TURNER: Where did you retrieve it from?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: From a vendor that went by the name of Candy Shop.
MR. TURNER: When you say vendor, what do you mean?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: On the website itself, it was -- anyone can become a user, anyone can register as a user, and they also could choose to register as a vendor, as well, or become a vendor and sell anything that they wanted.
MR. TURNER: Okay. So could we cut to page three, please. What's reflected in this page?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This was a screen shot that I took of Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: And Mr. Evert, can you zoom into that part.
What is reflected here?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This is the listing from Candy Shop of ten Redbulls, ecstasy pills.
MR. TURNER: Okay. So it says seller, Candy Shop there; is that right?
MR. TURNER: And then ships from Netherlands? Is that how you matched it up to a Netherlands seller?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes. I was able to sort the actual website from -- by vendors that shipped from particular country, so I was able to also search Netherlands vendors that way.
MR. TURNER: By the way, the 98, do you know what that means?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I do.
MR. TURNER: What does it mean?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a feedback rating score for the vendor.
MR. TURNER: And what do you mean by that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: So the website also had feedback that was on there, so as you would leave -- as you would purchase something from a vendor, you could leave feedback on your order and rate it. And the score 100 would be the highest down to basically one or zero.
MR. TURNER: Let's go on to Government Exhibit 102B, "B" as in boy.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: 102B?
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize this page?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: And how do you recognize it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This was a photograph that I took.
MR. TURNER: When did you take it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I took it on December 30th, 2011.
MR. TURNER: And what is it of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's me holding up -- I was at the mail unit and I was holding up an envelope that was seized from the Netherlands and I'm holding it up and it also shows the drugs as well as being logged into Silk Road beside it on my computer.
MR. TURNER: The government offers Exhibit 102B into evidence.
THE COURT: I'm sorry. I'm not really sure what I'm looking at. What were you --
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'm holding an envelope on the left-hand side and then there's drugs also below it; and then on the right-hand side is my computer and me logged into Silk Road.
THE COURT: And you took that photograph all at the same time?
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 102B is received.
(Government's Exhibit 102B received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Thank you, your Honor. Can we publish this exhibit?
MR. TURNER: What's on the left-hand side?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Left-hand side is an envelope that's seized at the mail unit out of the Netherlands mail.
MR. TURNER: And where are the drugs you say you seized from the envelope?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Below it's hard to see. It's the five dots, small, black holes in the bottom that are five in a row.
MR. TURNER: Did you test those drugs?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: What did they test positive for?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: For LSD.
MR. TURNER: And what's on the right-hand side of the screen?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That was -- I logged into Silk Road and found the drugs, the same drugs that we had -- that we had seized on Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: Where did they ship from?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They shipped from the Netherlands.
MR. TURNER: Let's take a look at one more, Government Exhibit 102C, "C" as in Charlie.
Do you recognize these pages?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: How do you recognize them?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was a photograph I took, as well as images I recovered from Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: And how do they relate to one another?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Could you repeat. I'm sorry.
MR. TURNER: How do the pages relate to one another?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The seizures that we made at the mail unit were all from the same Silk Road vendor that we also recovered images from the Silk Road from that vendor.
MR. TURNER: The government offers Government Exhibit 102C into evidence.
THE COURT: Government Exhibit 102C is received.
(Government's Exhibit 102C received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Publish the exhibit, please.
MR. TURNER: Could you explain to the jury what the envelopes in the screen reflect?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The envelopes, each one is an individual seizure we made. And outside of the envelopes from the drugs that were recovered, we placed the drugs on top of the envelopes. The one closest to the bottom is an amphetamine that we seized, as well as ecstasy pills, MDMA, crystal.
MR. TURNER: Walk up from the bottom.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Starting from the bottom, we had amphetamines as well as above it five blue ecstasy pills and above that, it was crystal MDMA powder, and as well as above that, cocaine.
MR. TURNER: And one of the envelopes says Dr. Amsterdam written there. Who wrote that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: Why did you write that there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I had previously linked these envelopes to that vendor on the Silk Road username.
MR. TURNER: How did you do that while we go to the next page?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Those are the seizures that we were seizing matching up these drugs to the images that were found by that one particular vendor.
MR. TURNER: And just to be clear, these images, is this how you found them on Silk Road, all bunched together like this?
MR. TURNER: How did you find the images on Silk Road?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Each individual image was attached to the listing for that particular product.
MR. TURNER: And you made a collage out of them here essentially?
MR. TURNER: So, can you put the two side by side, Mr. Evert, the first page and the second page.
While he's doing that, can you just explain how you matched them up?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: So for instance, the amphetamines had the same appearance and they also tested positive for amphetamine, which was being advertised by this vendor. There was the same pills that were being offered by that vendor that we were seizing, as well as the MDMA and the cocaine. It was an unusual combination of various drugs and the particular pill, which not all the same vendors on Silk Road sold the same pills. They had all different types of pills that they would sell as well. So this was -- this was a particular envelope style that was all the same that contained the same drugs that was being offered by this vendor that was on the Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: When you say unique combination, what do you mean?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: For instance, one vendor might just sell ecstasy or might just sell LSD, just one drug or one type of drug. This particular vendor offered multiple different drugs and we were able to seize those same drugs and the same pills from a particular style of envelope, the same style envelope.
MR. TURNER: Let's discuss in more detail what you learned about how Silk Road worked. How did you familiarize yourself with the various features of the site?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I navigated it myself.
MR. TURNER: Did you establish any undercover accounts on the site?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Approximately how many over time?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Probably four or five.
MR. TURNER: And were you able to access any other user accounts that you didn't yourself establish?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: And how did you do that during your investigation?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Various accounts would -- through the course of the investigation would either be turned over to us by people that we interviewed or talked to, some people we arrested, as well as not just regular accounts but also accounts that belonged to vendors as well as acquired administrator account.
MR. TURNER: What do you mean by administrator account?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was one of the staff member accounts for Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: So did Silk Road have a support staff?
MR. TURNER: And what was the name of your support staff account that you eventually took over?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The name was Cirrus.
MR. TURNER: When did you take that account over?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was July 2013.
MR. TURNER: How did you -- how long did you operate that account?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Operated it from July 2013 until we shut down Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: When was Silk Road shut down?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: October 2, 2013.
MR. TURNER: Do you know when the defendant was arrested?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He was arrested October 1, 2013.
MR. TURNER: So you were a staff member at the time of the defendant's arrest?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I was.
MR. TURNER: I'm going to come back to your Cirrus account later, but let me ask, how often during your entire investigation did you visit the Silk Road website through the various undercover accounts that you controlled?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Early on, it was once every few days, but then eventually it became everyday.
MR. TURNER: Approximately how many hours would you say you spent on the site in total?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thousands I would say over the course of a few years.
MR. TURNER: Did you do any undercover buys on the site?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Approximately how many?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Approximately 50 or more.
MR. TURNER: So how would you even get to the Silk Road website? Just go to silkroad.com?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No. You have to use it -- use a special program referred to as the Onion router, short for Tor, to access the actual website.
MR. TURNER: What was the web address of Silk Road, do you remember?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was silkroad Victor Bravo -- I'm doing it -- sorry.
MR. TURNER: Just stick with the letters.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Sorry. Sounds all the same. Silkroadvb5piz3r.onion.
MR. TURNER: What is a dot onion?
MR. TURNER: What kind of web address is that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The dot onion would be a website that resides within Tor.
MR. TURNER: So generally, what is the Tor network? What's it do?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Tor, the Tor network, it's a network on the Internet that anonymizes your traffic, anonymizes who you are and allows you also to visit these websites within Tor which are also known as hidden services.
(Continued on next page)
MR. TURNER: Is there anything illegal in and of itself about the Tor network?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Using Tor itself is not illegal, no.
MR. TURNER: So is there any way to access Silk Road through the ordinary Internet?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, there is not.
MR. TURNER: You had to access it through Tor?
MR. TURNER: Did you access the Tor network as part of your investigation?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Every time you visited Silk Road?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Was it hard to get on the Tor network?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, it wasn't difficult.
MR. TURNER: What did you have to do?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Visit the website, which is at torproject.org, and you can download its program, which included -- it is a Tor program bundled, which included a browser that -- Internet browser that you could use then to access this network.
MR. TURNER: And when you used this Tor browser, how was it different from browsing the Internet with an ordinary browser from your perspective?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was -- it is similar in features as a normal Internet browser, but it will allow you basically to remain anonymous while you are using the Internet and visiting other websites.
MR. TURNER: When you say that, what do you mean "remain anonymous?" What information would it conceal?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The browser itself protects your IP address, your Internet protocol address that you have when you are using the Internet.
MR. TURNER: What is an Internet protocol address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is a unique number that is generally assigned to you when you are using a computer on the Internet.
MR. TURNER: Do you know how to find your IP address on your computer?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: What does it look like?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is a series of numbers.
MR. TURNER: So give me an example.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Something like 50.19.236.250.
MR. TURNER: And what is an Internet protocol address used for?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's used to basically communicate when you are on the Internet from if you want to visit a website, it needs to know the connection. So your IP address is basically what identifies you on the Internet as well as any other computers that you visit or any other website you visit has to be an IP address as well. So it helps to navigate the Internet.
MR. TURNER: In preparation for testifying today, did you prepare a demonstration of a login of a Tor network?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: What kind of demonstration did you prepare?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a video that I made using my computer, using software to record what is going on within the computer.
MR. TURNER: When we're planing the video, can you explain the concepts we are discussing?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I would.
MR. TURNER: Would you turn to Government Exhibit 107.
Do you see anything there?
MR. TURNER: What do you see?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a disc, the government exhibit -- I'm sorry, the government evidence disc that is labeled for the video I played. I know that because I initialed it.
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, the government would request that we be able to play the video for the jury.
MR. DRATEL: Just our prior objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. Government Exhibit 107 is received and you can publish it by playing it.
(Government's Exhibit 107 received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: May I approach, your Honor?
THE COURT: Yes, you may.
MR. TURNER: Mr. Evert, just let me know when you are ready.
MR. EVERT: I am ready.
MR. TURNER: OK. So Agent Der-Yeghiayan, once we put this up on the screen, could you just direct Mr. Evert when to play and when to stop so you can talk through the video and explain what is being shown?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Sure.
So this is -- so I'm doing right now -- do you want to pause it real fast, actually? Sorry. Go back. On the right-hand side I, just for easy, put two websites up on there. The top one is a website that you can commonly find your IP address on the Internet, and it will also show your location on a map based off that IP address. And you can simply do that by plugging it into an Internet browser and it will run and tell you what your IP address is.
And then the second address that's on there is one that is a hidden service that I was describing on Silk Road.
MR. TURNER: I'm sorry, a hidden service?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: A hidden service that ends in ".onion."
MR. TURNER: So let's be clear. The second Web address, that is the Web address of Silk Road or another --
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No. Sorry. Silk Road was shut down by this point so it is a different hidden service.
MR. TURNER: OK. Go ahead.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: OK. I'm sorry. If you could play -- I am going to start by basically visiting this first website with the normal browser that you would use. I am connecting to the Internet right now. And I just put in a net address. If you want to pause it. By inputting that address into the URL bar, it pulls up the Web page and the Web page then will tell me what my IP address is and put me on a map so I can see where I am basically from.
MR. TURNER: A couple of things. When you say "URL bar," what are you referring to?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is the Internet bar up on top.
MR. TURNER: The address bar here?
MR. TURNER: Where is your IP address reflected here?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is reflected on the map itself and also down below right now.
MR. TURNER: Right here?
MR. TURNER: OK. Go ahead.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: OK. And so if you want to play.
This shows me that I am in Chicago. This is my IP address where I am currently at in Chicago.
And so now I'm going to take that hidden service dot-onion address and I am going to try to visit that -- do you want to pause it, please. I tried to visit that using the regular browser. So I put in the same dot-onion address and tried to visit it and it comes back as being not available.
MR. TURNER: Go ahead, please.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: If you could play it, please.
So now I minimized that browser and I am going to open up the Tor browser, which this is the Tor browser and I am going to do the same steps I did before. So I'm copying the address that tells me where I'm located, and I'm running that in the Tor browser and it's going to tell me where I'm located.
If you can pause it, please.
And so the Tor browser makes it appear as if I'm coming from Germany. And so it says my IP address is in Germany. So any website I visit using the Tor browser right now will think I'm in Germany.
MR. TURNER: And where is your apparent IP address listed on the page?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's in the white box in the middle as well as down below. It is the 188.138.9.489.
MR. TURNER: If you want to -- was that your actual IP address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, that is not my actual IP address.
MR. TURNER: OK. Go ahead.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: And now if you want to play it, I'm going to try to visit that same hidden service, dot-onion address that I visited or tried visiting with the regular browser, and I am going to try it now using the Tor browser.
And if you pause it.
And so just by simply entering the same dot-onion address now with the Tor browser, it makes the website appear. So you can visit it only if you are using the Tor browser.
MR. TURNER: Please continue.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: And then just to show an example, with the two browsers side-by-side, I could be on the Internet. It just depends which browser I am using. One will be my true IP address on the left-hand side and the other one will be not my true address, which is one that Tor protects basically the user behind it.
MR. TURNER: All right. So the video shows how Tor masks your IP address. From a law enforcement perspective what is the significance of an IP address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: An IP address we can use to identify someone that's potentially doing something behind a computer that is doing things on the Internet.
MR. TURNER: So how? How is the IP address potentially useful for that purpose?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: In other investigations that I have done as well as in this investigation, if we had an IP address, we could use that to then do a search on the open Internet, and it will tell us who the Internet service provider is. And from there we could subpoena that company and do some other type of legal process or request who is the person that is either renting or leasing that IP address for that given moment in time.
MR. TURNER: When you say "Internet service provider," what does that mean?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Internet service provider is a company that basically assigns out and owns IP addresses that provides you your Internet service that comes to your house, something like Time Warner or Comcast.
MR. TURNER: So let's say I'm a Time Warner customer and I use my Internet connection to do something illegal on the Internet and you as a law enforcement agent find out what I did and the IP address associated with it. So just where would you go from there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: So if you are a Time Warner customer and you -- and I guess if we are able to get your IP address from another website or from someone else that provided it to us or through investigation, I would do a search for that IP address on the open Internet. There are several websites that you can use to try to find out who the Internet search provider is.
MR. TURNER: It will come back to Time Warner?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It would come back to Time Warner. Once I found out it was Time Warner, I would then issue a subpoena likely to Time Warner, and I would ask them for the subscriber information for the person that would own that particular IP address on that given date and time.
MR. TURNER: All right. And so if I instead use Tor to do the same thing, would the same technique work?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, it would not.
MR. TURNER: And why is that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Because that IP address that Tor protects you with is not your IP address; it belongs to one of the relays or the parts of the network. It is not you.
MR. TURNER: How about a computer that hosts a website, are you familiar with the term "server"?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I am.
MR. TURNER: What does a server mean in the context of the Internet?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Server is just basically another word for a computer that usually hosts a website or can run a website.
MR. TURNER: And do you have any experience tracking down the location of a server based on its IP address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: So if a law enforcement officer -- as a law enforcement officer, you are trying to track down the location of a server that hosts a website on the ordinary Internet, how would you go about that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Generally, not too different than how we would search for someone that had an IP address in a similar way. You could do open searches on the Internet, again, through like websites like who.is or the main tools that will tell you what an IP address is for a particular website, and it would be the same steps basically from there. We would find out who the Internet service provider is. The Internet search provider will then tell us who the subscriber is. Sometimes it might come back to a hosting company, which is generally used to host websites, or sometimes it can be the subscriber themselves that are operating that website.
MR. TURNER: You mentioned the who.is website. Would you just explain what kind of website that is?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is a website that you could search its domain names like the www.nfl or Google.com, things like that.
MR. TURNER: Do you see Government Exhibit 106A, I believe it is, in your binder?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: All right.
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize what these are, these pages are?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I do.
MR. TURNER: What are they from?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a screenshot of the website "who.is."
MR. TURNER: All right. Would it be helpful in explaining these concepts to show this as an example of the who.is website, what it does?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it would be.
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, we would offer this as a demonstrative just to show how this website works.
THE COURT: This is Government Exhibit 106B?
MR. TURNER: I believe it is 106A.
MR. TURNER: Is that it?
THE COURT: All right. Mr. Dratel.
MR. DRATEL: I'm sorry, we were just -- the same objections, your Honor, that we had before.
THE COURT: All right. I will assume it is the same as the prior objection.
MR. DRATEL: Yes.
THE COURT: My exhibit list I think doesn't have this from the prior. We will deal with it at the break.
Government 106A is received.
(Government's Exhibit 106A received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Could you publish it, Mr. Evert. Could you zoom in up at the top. Keep going. There you go. Thank you.
Actually, you are going to have to zoom in some more under the sticker, please. There you go. Yes, that is good.
BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: OK. So, just briefly, what does this document show?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This shows the -- it is the who.is website.
MR. TURNER: And what is it a search for in the who.is website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This is a page on the who.is website of a search result. If you were able -- if you were to search in the box up above that says "search domain name or IP address" and enter in a domain, in this instance we looked up NFL.com, it will tell you the who.is information for that particular website, including IP address.
MR. TURNER: OK. Where is the IP address located here?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's down at the bottom in the blue colored numbers.
MR. TURNER: All right. And have you tried doing the same thing for a dot-onion address?
MR. TURNER: Could you turn to Government Exhibit 106B. What is this document?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This is who.is as well as trying to search a dot-onion address.
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, again, we just offer this as a demonstrative to show the jury how this website works.
THE COURT: All right. Government Exhibit 106B is received as such.
(Government's Exhibit 106B received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Publish that, Mr. Evert. Zoom in, please.
MR. TURNER: OK. So what does this show?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: This would be what would generally show up if you tried to query or search for a dot-onion address. In this instance, that is the same address that I had in my video for the dot-onion address that we visited on there.
MR. TURNER: OK. So --
THE COURT: Mr. Turner, just for your planning purposes, there will be a couple of housekeeping matters that we will have to take up. So why don't you end in just a few minutes.
MR. TURNER: This is a good place to stop, actually, your Honor. I was going to shift to another topic.
THE COURT: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to break for today. I want to give you a couple of instructions. Joe will give you instructions about how to gather up your stuff and get out and where you should leave your notebooks and things like that.
I want to remind you not to talk to anybody about this case, including each other, anybody at all. Please don't try to become experts on the different parts of the Internet that you may have heard about. Don't do any research or get on and Google things or try to downloads the Tor browser. Again, it is important that all you do is listen to the evidence in this courtroom, and that's the evidence that will be used by you to decide the factual issues in this case.
Again, don't email anybody about this case or update your profile in Facebook.
We're going to start at 9:30 each day. So it is important that if you can get here by about 9:15, get yourself in place and all of that, that would be very helpful. Again, you can bring coffee in or tea, or whatever, water, or whatever you would like so that when we start at 9:30 we are ready to walk out and get going. We can't start until each and every one of you, all 16 of you, are here. So just be aware of that and try to be on time. It very important. Otherwise, this whole room is waiting for you.
All right. Now, tomorrow when you come in, I don't know -- we've got a bunch of different cases going on right now in the courthouse. If there is anybody outside who has got any of those pamphlets or posters or anything like that, I instruct you that you are just to put your head down and keep walking. Don't read. Don't look. Don't commune or confer with anybody about anything outside of this building that might have to do with the case or the jury process or anything else. OK?
If you find that you have been approached by somebody or inadvertently you have seen something, let Joe know and then we will take it up. But I ask you, please, to try to avoid any media about this case in terms of newspapers or anything else as well as whatever may be going on outside. All right?
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We'll see you tomorrow morning.
COURT CLERK: All rise as the jury leaves.
(Continued on next page)
(Jury not present)
THE COURT: All right. Sir, you can step down. We are going to continue tomorrow morning at 9:30. So I will have you back on the stand at 9:30.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thank you, your Honor.
THE COURT: Go ahead and step out.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thank you.
(Witness not present)
THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, let's all be seated and we'll take up a few matters now.
First, and just in terms of the logistics, so I have two exhibit lists, the one that was handed to me this morning, that is I think the updated government exhibit list and then I have the one that has all of the objections on it. To the extent that there are documents that are on the new list that were not on the old list, I don't have any indication as to objection. That was the nature of why I said I assume it is the prior objection for 106B. And so I am assuming that Mr. Dratel has had an opportunity to see the documents that are not on my prior list.
MR. TURNER: That is correct, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. So, Mr. Dratel, we'll take it step-by-step, but if they are just going to be the same documents of a type, then your other objections will be, I think, obvious.
MR. DRATEL: OK.
THE COURT: And my rulings will be similarly, and the basis therefor will similarly be obvious.
MR. DRATEL: Right. Some of them we received over the last couple of days so I'm not even sure if they are on the government's list. So sometimes it is hard to -- at least the one that we have, but it is hard to make the comparison the same way that the Court is doing. I am trying to do it in a way that covers that.
THE COURT: All right. So we'll just take it step-by-step.
It's not my practice to have standing objections throughout the entirety of a case, particularly when virtually all the documents were objected to. But we'll take it, again, step-by-step. So today we had a standing objection that stood for all of the documents this afternoon. It may be, Mr. Dratel, that that makes sense for tomorrow.
Why don't you go through a couple and then do something similar. If you are finding it is the same, I don't mind doing that. If it is going to be repetitive for you, I don't think it is necessary for you to seem to be objecting all the time if you don't want to be, and I understand that.
MR. DRATEL: Yes. And I'm not sure whether the Court -- I will check with counsel as to whether the Court included objections in your instructions to the jury about not to take any -- you know, I know the Court said nothing you say is evidence and nothing you say expresses an opinion. I'm not sure you mentioned objections specifically. But, obviously, I am conscious of that issue --
THE COURT: Yes. I am happy if you would like me to give an instruction to the jury that, ladies and gentlemen, you should not draw any inference of any kind from the objections that counsel may make on either side. It is their responsibility and it is expected. And if you want me to do something like that, I am happy to do it. Why don't you let me know in the morning.
MR. DRATEL: I think so, yes. We will discuss it. Thank you, your Honor.
THE COURT: Now, that is on the objections.
Was there anything you folks wanted to raise? I've got one more matter.
MR. TURNER: No, your Honor.
THE COURT: One I want to take up at the sidebar but one I want to do here.
All right. Outside there are still some folks. That's what I was checking on before. Now, it's, frankly, going to -- what we'll have to do is -- and I think that the defense has not wanted this and so I am not suggesting the defense has any control over this. But to the extent that there are still people outside the courthouse who are approaching jurors and approaching people who they perceive to be jurors, it creates obviously issues for us and does lead us to the need, potentially, very potentially, for an anonymous jury. I am happy to make that decision tomorrow, to let it go into the morning and see whether or not we have any issues tomorrow morning. But if we do, then we will have to go with an anonymous jury and have the jurors also have -- be brought out to a different place and brought in specially.
I prefer for the defendant not to do that. I know, Mr. Dratel, you have objected and not wanted to have an anonymous jury. But if individuals are continuing, I don't really know if we've got much alternative.
Do you have any views?
MR. DRATEL: Yes. I will put it on the record so that maybe the press will report it, that the people think that they are helping the defense by being out there doing this. They are not.
THE COURT: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: When it gets to that stage that the Court has to act, it hurts us. Hopefully, that will be reported and that will reach the people.
THE COURT: The Court has held off. We will try to take it step-by-step, but at this point the defendant would not like to go this way but, really, it leaves me no alternative.
MR. DRATEL: Obviously, let's see how it plays out tomorrow, but I am sort of stating that on the record so that, hopefully, the people are out of my control and out of Mr. Ulbricht's control and will desist on their own.
THE COURT: We will see how things go tomorrow morning and then we'll make a decision, but we won't let it go any longer than that because it's a classic reason to allow for additional procedures.
Now, those are the matters that I had apart from one additional item I wanted to take up over at the sidebar.
Are there things that you folks would like to raise right now?
MR. TURNER: No, your Honor. Thank you.
MR. DRATEL: No, your Honor.
THE COURT: All right. So we will start tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock, take up any additional housekeeping matters that may come in overnight. If there is anything tomorrow morning that you folks want to alert me to in terms of what might be coming up that I should be aware of, surprises, etc., you will let me know tomorrow morning at 9. If we don't need to take up all the time between 9 and 9:30, so be it, we will take a break and get some coffee.
Can I have counsel at sidebar, please?
(Pages 118 through 119 sealed by order of the Court)
(Adjourned to January 14, 2015 at 9:00 a.m.)