The defense rested after testimony from Christopher Kincaid and Bridget Prince and the presentation of documentary evidence. Both sides completed closing arguments over Ulbricht's identity as DPR, the duration of his involvement and the reliability of digital evidence. The court denied a defense mistrial motion and deferred jury instructions until the next morning.
Full day summary
The court addressed disputed defense evidence and jury instructions outside the jury's presence. It excluded inigo's reported statement under the statement-against-interest exception, finding neither the required penal-interest character nor sufficient corroboration, without resolving the separate double-hearsay objection. It also denied a missing-witness instruction because the proffered account was not reasonably exculpatory. The court accepted a character-evidence instruction with added language reserving guilt to the jury, over defense objection, and rejected other supplemental defense instructions.
Christopher Kincaid described living and socializing with Ross Ulbricht for about two months before the arrest. He recalled a family visit but qualified his observations because he was working. On cross-examination, he acknowledged not knowing Ulbricht's occupation and did not recall telling an FBI agent that they barely spoke. Defense investigator Bridget Prince identified a laptop file named market rewrite, admitted as Defendant's Exhibit M, and reported finding approximately six emails from Ulbricht's Google account during June 24–28, 2013. The court limited her testimony to personal observations rather than interpretation of the Google records.
Defense counsel read Silk Road forum posts and a limited stipulation concerning DPR's knowledge of law enforcement efforts and payment for information. The court prohibited using the stipulation's reference to bitcoin exchanges to infer that Mark Karpeles operated Silk Road. The approved language described purported law enforcement efforts; the reading omitted that qualifier. After the government declined a separate proposed stipulation concerning Mr. Jones, the court refused to compel agreement and denied a defense mistrial motion. The defense rested, and the evidentiary record closed.
In closing, Serrin Turner argued that Ulbricht operated Silk Road from its creation through his arrest, citing laptop records, chats, bitcoin transfers, personal records and the library arrest. He requested guilty findings on all seven counts. Joshua Dratel sought acquittal on every count, arguing that Ulbricht had left the site, DPR was someone else, and digital records could have been manipulated or planted. He challenged evidence preservation and bitcoin tracing and discussed alternative suspects. Timothy Howard's rebuttal disputed those theories, emphasizing the laptop, a thumb-drive backup and handwritten formulas. These were counsel's arguments, not findings by the court or jury. Discussing alleged murder-for-hire payments, Turner said those allegations were not charges for this jury to decide and that the government did not contend any murders occurred. Howard likewise acknowledged no evidence the killings occurred.
The court deferred jury instructions until the next morning, preserved previously stated charge objections and directed counsel to resolve jury-room exhibit arrangements. Jurors were again instructed not to discuss the case or read related news.