Day 4 - January 20, 2015

Judge Katherine B. Forrest allowed competent factual evidence supporting an alternative-perpetrator defense but barred questions eliciting Jared Der-Yeghiayan's beliefs, suspicions, or probable-cause conclusions. She treated the Forbes interview as hearsay and excluded Mark Karpeles's offer to identify DPR as irrelevant. Joshua Dratel challenged the restrictions, arguing that examination of the investigation could support the defense by inference. Initially, no earlier testimony was struck. On cross-examination, Der-Yeghiayan acknowledged limits on his access to earlier account communications and his ability to identify operators of shared or unverified accounts. He had seen reports of failed PGP validation but had not independently tested those messages; none he personally tested failed. The court admitted Defendant's Exhibit F, containing an earlier chat, but not for the truth of its messages. The court later rejected the defense's waiver argument and directed counsel to proceed on the basis that selected earlier testimony would be struck, while agreeing to review the passages again. Other Karpeles evidence would remain. Forrest planned a later general jury instruction and denied the defense's request to pause until the next day. Resumed cross-examination addressed investigative foundations, bitcoin records, and server imaging. Der-Yeghiayan acknowledged that a source supplied his assessment of MediaWiki's prevalence, although his affidavit attributed it to training and experience. He said Ulbricht entered his investigation only after Gary Alford brought him to his attention around September 10 or 11, 2013. Outside the jury's presence, the court deferred deciding whether the defense could introduce the complaint's revenue and commission estimates. On redirect, Der-Yeghiayan acknowledged the difficulty of identifying DPR through online conversations alone, but testified that he saw an identical arrest-day chat on Ulbricht's computer and identified Ulbricht as the person communicating with him that day. He explained administrator-only access and his interpretation of recovered notes. An archived website screenshot was admitted subject to connection. Redirect remained unfinished at adjournment.