Jared Der-Yeghiayan completed testimony on writing comparisons, registration records and limits on identifying DPR chat participants. Thomas Kiernan described Ulbricht's laptop seizure and recovered files. The court admitted exhibits over objections, instructed jurors to disregard investigative suspicions about others and deferred the required connection for alleged defendant statements.
Full day summary
The court allowed factual questioning about comparisons between Liberty Student posts and Dread Pirate Roberts writings, but barred the agent's conclusions about shared writing style or identity. It also permitted impeachment using Complaint Paragraph 22C while reserving a final decision on admitting the paragraph as a government admission.
Jared Der-Yeghiayan completed testimony about those comparisons, hosting services, domain registrations and investigative limits. He described registration details that were not verified and said Richard Page information appeared both in registration records and on Ross Ulbricht's computer. He acknowledged that identifying Ulbricht on the arrest day did not establish who participated in his other DPR communications. He also confirmed that the complaint listed 614,305 bitcoins in commissions, but said he had not participated in transaction or valuation calculations. The court required another witness for further financial questioning.
FBI computer scientist Thomas Kiernan then described agents distracting Ulbricht during his arrest and taking his running laptop. He said his first photograph, taken before any clicks, showed a conversation with the undercover account Cirrus. Later photographs documented Silk Road pages reached through the browser's back button, including a page showing the Dread Pirate Roberts login. Kiernan explained live triage and forensic-copy verification. He acknowledged that live imaging changed access dates while maintaining that file contents were unchanged.
The court admitted journals, chats and other recovered records over defense objections. Prosecutor Timothy Howard read passages describing Silk Road's development, staffing and finances. These were statements in recovered materials, not Kiernan's firsthand account of operating the site. Between portions of Kiernan's testimony, the court instructed jurors to disregard Der-Yeghiayan's suspicions about others while allowing consideration of his other testimony under the final instructions.
Kiernan's continued testimony covered server records, messaging instructions, alias information, website files and cryptographic keys. He said messaging instructions matched a DPR private message apart from completed credential fields, and that a public key extracted from a laptop private-key file corresponded to the DPR public key on the website and laptop. Outside the jury's presence, the court explained its evidentiary rulings and treated alleged defendant statements as party admissions subject to connection. Defense counsel disputed equating possession with authorship. The court deferred the connection determination until the government's case was in and said defense objections had not been waived.