2.Jared Der-Yeghiayan — Redirect/Recross (Part 11)
607 linesREDIRECT EXAMINATION (Resumed)
MR. TURNER: Could we put Government Exhibit 149 on the screen, please?
Your Honor, I believe the defense is now going to stipulate to the admission of this document.
MR. DRATEL: Yes, but just as it appeared on archive.org at that time.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you. 149 is received.
(Government's Exhibit 149 received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Mr. Evert, could you zoom into the top Paragraph there.
BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: OK. So it says, "This is not the Silk Road, but you are close. The Silk Road is an anonymous online market. Current offerings include marijuana, hash, shrooms, LSD, ecstasy, DMT, mescalin and more. The site uses the Tor anonymity network, which anonymizes all traffic to and from the site, so no one can find out who you are or who runs Silk Road. For money, we use bitcoin, an anonymous currency."
Yesterday you testified that this website was hosted at a Web hosting company controlled by Mr. Karpeles, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it was.
MR. TURNER: And the name, again, of the company was what?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is KalyHost.
MR. TURNER: Did it go by another name as well?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There is AutoVPS.
MR. TURNER: And you testified yesterday you searched emails associated with Mr. Karpeles' Web hosting company, is that right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: Did you find any emails from the email address staff@silkroadmarket.org in there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. TURNER: May I approach, your Honor?
THE COURT: You may.
MR. TURNER: Do you recognize this exhibit? I'm showing you what's been marked as Government Exhibit 151.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I do.
MR. TURNER: How do you recognize it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's one of the emails that I observed in Mark Karpeles' email account.
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, the government offers Government Exhibit 151 into evidence.
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: Give me one more word.
MR. DRATEL: Oh, hearsay. Foundation.
MR. TURNER: It is not being offered --
THE COURT: Overruled. Government Exhibit 151 is received.
MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, also authenticity. There are no headers. There is nothing. This could have been --
THE COURT: Why don't you do a little more to lay a foundation as to this, and then subject to that foundation it is received.
BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: Where did you receive the documents from?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The email came from Gmail from Google.
MR. TURNER: OK.
THE COURT: Was that part of the subpoena response.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was the search warrant results that were returned by Google.
THE COURT: Thank you. You may proceed. It is received.
(Government's Exhibit 151 received in evidence)
MR. TURNER: Could you put it up on the screen, Mr. Evert. Could you zoom in on the top.
MR. TURNER: It is from "staff@silkroadmarket.org." The date is March 18, 2011. It's to "support@autovps.net." The question is: "How do I upgrade my memory for my VPS with AutoVPS?"
Do you know what the terms "VPS" refers to?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It is virtual private server.
MR. TURNER: Do you know what that term means?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. TURNER: Have you ever rented server space before?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I have.
MR. TURNER: From that experience, are you familiar with the term "virtual private server"?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I am.
MR. TURNER: So based on that --
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
MR. TURNER: -- can you explain what virtual private server space is?
THE COURT: No. This question is fine.
You may answer.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Essentially, it's space that's allocated or taken from a server that's assigned to you. So it acts as if it is a server of its own. So it is just taking space and giving it to you and allowing you to use it like a regular server would.
MR. TURNER: And this email address, to support@autovps.net, in reviewing the emails that you saw in that search warrant return, did you see other emails that were addressed to support@autovps.net?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: What are those emails generally about?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
MR. TURNER: Not for the truth, your Honor.
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: You could give some topics. You may answer.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Basically -- I mean, for the most part, customer-support-related inquiries related to the hosting service.
MR. DRATEL: Just objection, your Honor, with respect to any inference that it is from silkroadmarket.org. He is talking about entirety, right?
THE COURT: Let's talk about that at the break but I have allowed the answer.
BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: Just to be clear, are you talking about customer support inquiries from multiple other customers or just staff@silkroadmarket.org?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were multiple customers.
MR. TURNER: OK. So support@autovps.net was used to receive customer support inquiries?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
MR. TURNER: Is that basically your testimony?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: Overruled.
MR. TURNER: Now, did -- and just to be clear, when you were talking about the search warrant for emails, it is a search warrant for emails associated with Mark Karpeles' Web hosting company, is that right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were multiple, yeah, email accounts, I mean, we looked into for Mark Karpeles.
(Continued on next page)
BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: Now, did Mark Karpeles' web hosting company KalyHost AutoVPS help their customers register their websites?
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: Based upon your review, was there information which indicated that to you? You may answer.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Based upon my review and then also had registered before, I participated in registering -- also from my review, I've seen it and from registering the site through KalyHost.
MR. TURNER: So you yourself tested it out by registering a site on KalyHost?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I participated in that.
MR. TURNER: Can you explain briefly what it means to register a website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It means to provide information to basically claim ownership over a website name and to provide your personal details to take ownership of it.
MR. TURNER: So when you registered a website on KalyHost, did KalyHost ask you for any information like that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They did.
MR. TURNER: What sort of information?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was information such as like a point of contact, so it asked for your name, email address, address, telephone number, as well as technical point-of-contacts and administrative point-of-contacts.
MR. TURNER: Were you required to verify that information in any way?
MR. TURNER: Is there any way the public can view register information associated with website addresses?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, there is.
MR. TURNER: And how can they do so?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's called a who.is database, so it's a public database that records that information when you do register a website. It keeps track of basically what information you provide when you do register it so you can search that publicly.
MR. TURNER: Is that information available in the who.is web page that we looked at earlier?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That is avaliable there; yes.
MR. TURNER: Can you put GX 150 back on the screen, please. Can you zoom in here.
Going back to this web page, who does it reflect registered the silkroadmarket.org website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The information provided shows that it was registered to Richard Page at 11640 Gary Street, Garden Grove, California, 92840, and it's a telephone number, and then as well is an email address which is richardpage@gawab.com.
MR. TURNER: Did you look into whether this address -- and, Mr. Evert, can you zoom in here so it's very clear.
Did you look into whether this address, 11640 Gary Street, Garden Grove, California, was a real address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: And whether the phone number was a real phone number?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: How did you do that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The address I looked up in our -- the Clear database that we have access to, as well as the telephone number I checked as well.
MR. TURNER: What is the Clear database a compilation of?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a compilation of credit data that's provided, as well as, like, utility bills and public information generally about people, so it stores that information.
MR. TURNER: And is Clear generally accepted and relied upon by law enforcement to check address and phone number information?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it is.
MR. DRATEL: I'm going to object, your Honor.
MR. TURNER: 803.17 provides the basis.
MR. DRATEL: This is a database full of hearsay.
THE COURT: I'm going to allow it.
MR. TURNER: So, what did you find?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The address wasn't registered to anybody, so it reflects to me that it wasn't -- there wasn't anyone ever registered to that address. There wasn't utility bills, anything ever associated to that address.
MR. TURNER: Did you find the real address with that number?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, I did not.
MR. TURNER: What about the phone number?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The telephone number wasn't registered to anyone of that name.
MR. TURNER: Have you seen this information for Richard Page anywhere else?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I have.
MR. TURNER: Where?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: When I searched Ross Ulbricht's computer after the arrest.
MR. TURNER: Where did you find it on Ross Ulbricht's computer?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was a file by the name of "aliases" on his computer and there was a text document titled "info" that had the same information on there, so the same name, as well as the -- what appeared to be to me names, passwords and usernames for AutoVPS and for KalyHost and for I believe gawab as well.
MR. TURNER: It included the exact same address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It did.
MR. TURNER: And the exact same phone number?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It did.
MR. TURNER: No further questions.
THE COURT: Thank you.
Mr. Dratel.
MR. DRATEL: Thank you, your Honor. Can we come up for a second one clarification. It takes a minute.
THE COURT: Okay.
(Continued on next page)
(At the side bar)
MR. DRATEL: I'm just trying to be careful, because mises.org has not come up, I want to ask him what that is and why he was looking at it. That's all. It's part of the investigation, what was the relevance to the investigation? So just two very quick questions on mises.org.
THE COURT: Okay.
MR. DRATEL: Thank you.
(Continued on next page)
(In open court; jury present)
RECROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DRATEL:
MR. DRATEL: Good morning, Special Agent Der-Yeghiayan.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Good morning.
MR. DRATEL: Was there a time -- I want to draw your attention back to Anand Athavale we spoke about him yesterday, A-T-H-A-V-A-L-E, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: He was a Canadian citizen who at one time you were looking at, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He was one I investigated, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And during the course of your investigation, did you come across a site called mises.org, m-i-s-e-s.org?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. DRATEL: And what is that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's a website that's set up for libertarian beliefs, as well as there's an online forum associated with it, too.
MR. DRATEL: And as part of your investigation, did you -- what was the relevance to your investigation of mises.org?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was -- I observed on the bottom of Dread Pirate Roberts' profile that he would link articles from that website for things for people to read. So there would be, on his signature line on his forum profile, he would link mises pages.
MR. DRATEL: And did you look at posts from the mises.org forum?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. DRATEL: And did you look at posts under the name Anand Athavale?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It wasn't under his name.
MR. DRATEL: What was it under?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was under Liberty Student.
MR. DRATEL: And how did you connect that to -- did you do anything to connect that to Mr. Athavale?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. DRATEL: And what was that that you did?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I looked through his posts that were publicly available. I was looking for anything that would be personal indicators to help me identify who --
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: I'll allow this.
MR. TURNER: It calls for the agent's conclusion.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: -- who the person was that was potentially behind that identity on that forum.
MR. DRATEL: And at some point, did you compare those posts for libertystudent.org and -- I guess, what facts led you to associate libertystudent.org with Mr. Athavale?
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained. We'll go on to the next piece.
MR. DRATEL: So did you compare those posts from libertystudent.org to anything?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I compared the posts by Liberty Student on mises to forum posts from Silk Road from Dread Pirate Roberts.
MR. DRATEL: Anything else from Dread Pirate Roberts?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: As well as undercover chats, as well that I had access to -- and I believe -- there might have been other -- whatever else I had access to, if it was from the marketplace or from anywhere else that was cited from Dread Pirate Roberts at the time.
MR. DRATEL: And did you compare the two posts, the words in the two posts, I mean in the two sets of posts, libertystudent.org versus Dread Pirate Roberts?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. DRATEL: And did you find similarities?
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: Did you find sometimes the same word in one as well as the other?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were commonalities; yes.
THE COURT: Why don't you go through some of the factual commonalities, if there are any.
MR. DRATEL: Thank you.
MR. DRATEL: And do they both spell "labor," L-A-B-O-R as "labour," L-A-B-O-U-R occasionally, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That was one of them, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Both use and spell the word "real-time" with a hyphen between real and time, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: Both use the word "lemme," L-E-M-M-E as opposed to "let me," right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were occasions, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Both end sentences with comma, right, question mark?
MR. DRATEL: Both spell "route" R-O-U-T-E as "rout," R-O-U-T?
MR. DRATEL: Both use the term "intellectual laziness"?
MR. DRATEL: Both use the term and actively discussed the concept of "agorism" and the "agorist"?
MR. DRATEL: And do you know what that is?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, no, I don't.
MR. DRATEL: Both use and spell the word "counter-economics" with a hyphen between counter and economics, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "the ladder" in quotes before the "and" after "ladder," right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They did.
MR. DRATEL: Both quite often capitalize smaller words when they want to emphasize, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yeah, like a -- capitalize an entire word, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Neither uses hyphens to space out sentences or thoughts, right?
MR. DRATEL: Both start sentences with "and" and "but" quite often, right?
MR. DRATEL: Both will commonly not capitalize the first word in a sentence when replying short and quick?
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "the heart of the matter"?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That sounds correct, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Both quite often will use a backslash, the symbol for backslash on the computer to split words with similar meaning and the second word never having the space after the slash, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "altruistic," right?
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "pal," right?
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "war mongering"?
MR. DRATEL: Both used the term "phoney," P-H-O-N-E-Y, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: Both discuss and mention authors Murray Rothbard, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: And Samuel Konkin?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Konkin?
MR. DRATEL: K-O-N-K-I-N?
MR. DRATEL: Do you know who they are?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They were inspirations for Dread Pirate Roberts according to his posts.
MR. DRATEL: Are they libertarians?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: As far as I'm aware. I'm not too familiar with them, but yes.
MR. DRATEL: Both commonly end sentences with a smiley face or the wink smiley face emoticons?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: On their forum posts; yes.
MR. DRATEL: Both sometimes end sentences with the word "amigo"?
MR. DRATEL: Both use the term "a narco-capitalist" with a hyphen in the middle?
MR. DRATEL: Both misspell the word "alot," meaning that they spell it -- that they're both spelled, in the comparisons that you did, as one word as opposed to two words, "alot" A-L-O-T as one word?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: Both have discussed the paleo human, P-A-L-E-O?
MR. DRATEL: And they're both use the same expletive, right? There's an expletive?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I believe so, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And you wrote a report about that, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: I will allow this question.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. DRATEL: And you also sent these sets of posts to an English professor at a university to examine and analyze, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. DRATEL: Now, during your redirect yesterday afternoon, you mentioned that DPR was security conscious, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He was, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Did he ever mention he was keeping a journal?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not in my posts or private messages or chats, no.
MR. DRATEL: Did he ever tell you that he was saving chats on his computer?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not that I recall, no.
MR. DRATEL: Did he ever tell you that he was using public Wi-Fi?
MR. DRATEL: Now, by the way, when he was out in public the day of the arrest, when Mr. Ulbricht was out in public on the day of his arrest, that was not at your prodding. He went out on his own voluntarily into a public place, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He did.
MR. DRATEL: But it was you who asked him to log onto Silk Road, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I asked Dread Pirate Roberts to log onto Silk Road, yes.
MR. DRATEL: So let's look at 129C, please, Government's 129C. Now, when you talked about the chat yesterday, that's not part of Silk Road, correct, the chat itself?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's not on the marketplace or the forum.
MR. DRATEL: Right. It's a separate information called Pidgin, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It's -- I believe it's a Java server that was on Tor.
MR. DRATEL: Also called OTR, Off The Record, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It can be done in OTR, yeah.
MR. DRATEL: But it's a separate Tor chat program not part of any of the Silk Road website or forums or anything like that, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was separate from it; yes.
MR. DRATEL: So that's what he was logged on to when you realized he was online, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: When I was -- when he came online, this is what indicated to me that he was online, was the chat.
MR. DRATEL: Pidgin, not Silk Road, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: He wasn't on Silk Road until you asked him to get on Silk Road, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: And you say "check out one of the flagged messages for me," and then it says "sure," right, "let me log in"?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it does.
MR. DRATEL: So he's already online on Pidgin, which is the chat program, but he's not on Silk Road at that point, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: From -- yeah, from this, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And you were asked by Mr. Turner yesterday about who was on the other side of the screen that day, right?
MR. DRATEL: And you satisfied yourself based on going into the library looking at the screen that Mr. Ulbricht was on the other side of the screen that day, right?
MR. DRATEL: But you can't testify, can you, about who you know was on the other side of the screen (in)any other communication you had with Dread Pirate Roberts, can you?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, I cannot.
MR. DRATEL: After all, everybody on Silk Road thought you were somebody else for a couple of years, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: For the --
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: Why don't you reframe it.
MR. DRATEL: Okay.
MR. DRATEL: You were on Silk Road from some time in early 2012 through the end of September of 2013 under various account names, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I utilized multiple account names, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And no one knew your real identity, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I only actively chatted, though, with -- primarily with the cirrus account, though, but the rest of the ones were primarily used for either buys or for screen shots.
MR. DRATEL: They didn't know your identity, your real identity, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not on any one of them, no.
MR. DRATEL: They had no idea who was on the other end of that screen, did they?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No. I never told them, no.
MR. DRATEL: Also with respect to "flagged messages," you identified the post you were looking for, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: At the end of the chat, I told him "the one with atlantis."
MR. DRATEL: Right. In terms of who is on the other end of the screen, we went through that exchange before with respect to there was a period of time in which you weren't sure whether DPR was operating someone's account, whether it's SSBD, right, that's a username, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: Hold on one second. Sustained.
MR. DRATEL: Now, you were asked about Government Exhibit 130 on redirect, right, the handwritten notes, right?
MR. DRATEL: And you asked whether they said anything about Silk Road or illegal drugs, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I was asked that, yes.
MR. DRATEL: But you're aware that in July of 2013, just a couple of months before Mr. Ulbricht's arrest, that he was interviewed by Homeland Security, right?
MR. TURNER: Objection; foundation.
MR. DRATEL: You're aware that he was interviewed, aren't you?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I was.
MR. DRATEL: And you're aware that it had to do with a shipment from Silk Road, right?
MR. TURNER: Objection; foundation, hearsay.
THE COURT: You need to go back over that and lay a foundation for it.
MR. DRATEL: During your investigation, you became aware, right, that Mr. Ulbricht -- withdrawn.
That Homeland Security interviewed Mr. Ulbricht about -- and you've read -- withdrawn.
During the course of your investigation, you were kept apprised of what was going on, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection; hearsay, vagueness.
MR. DRATEL: For purposes -- you read reports --
THE COURT: Hold on. Ask the question.
MR. DRATEL: You read reports about an interview of Mr. Ulbricht by Homeland Security, correct?
THE COURT: You can answer that yes or no.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, I did.
MR. DRATEL: And the subject matter was about a package shipped by Silk Road, a Silk Road vendor, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection to the hearsay.
THE COURT: Right. That's sustained.
MR. DRATEL: Now, you were asked also on redirect about travel records, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's correct.
MR. DRATEL: And you said there were some aliases. You ran those aliases for travel records, too, didn't you?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The aliases for travel records?
MR. DRATEL: In other words, any aliases for Mr. Ulbricht that you might have found, you ran them for travel records, too, didn't you?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I can't recall if I did.
MR. DRATEL: Now, we talked about that he takes about a trip a year out of the country. And you were asked about international travel, whether you could determine whether he went from one country to another country, right; you couldn't tell that from the travel records that you looked at in terms of a sheet that you got from border authorities, right --in other words, either leaving the country or coming into the country is what you said, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The records that were reflected in the database that we have access to just shows where they're coming from and where they travel to.
MR. DRATEL: But you also had the passport, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I didn't have that until after the arrest.
MR. DRATEL: Right, but you had it now and you've had it for quite some time, right?
MR. DRATEL: So the case passport is in evidence, right?
MR. DRATEL: It's Exhibit 134, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I believe so, yes.
MR. DRATEL: If we can go to the next page, please. Those are the only stamps in there, right, there's one for Australia, one for the Island of Dominica and one for Costa Rica, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: So if he went from Costa Rica to Brazil, there would be a stamp, wouldn't there, on his passport?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not necessarily. There's -- I've worked as border inspector for a lot of years, so I do know that sometimes there aren't always the stamps for the countries they enter into. It just depends.
MR. DRATEL: So you know whether he would have been stamped or not?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I couldn't tell you if another country would for sure stamp it or not. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.
MR. DRATEL: Those three stamped it, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They did stamp it.
MR. DRATEL: And it matched exactly what you had on the travel records, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'd have to go back and review it, but --
MR. DRATEL: The MediaWiki, right, we talked about that?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: We did.
MR. DRATEL: And the fact is, though, that the commonality between the Karpeles website and silkroadmarket.org was about the version of MediaWiki, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The version was the same, yes.
MR. DRATEL: But it was an outdated version, right? It wasn't the current version at the time, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: At the current time, it was an outdated version; yes.
MR. DRATEL: So of all the people who use MediaWiki, do you know how many use an outdated version?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I don't know how many use an outdated version.
MR. DRATEL: It's free, right? You can upgrade it for free, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: You can, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Now, with respect to -- I'm showing you what's marked -- and I'll go back to travel for a second and show you what's marked as 3505-3051 and just ask you to review it. Let me know when you're finished.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thank you. Okay.
MR. DRATEL: Does that refresh your recollection that the travel records that you reviewed from your database matched exactly the stamps on the passport?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The stamps match, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Now, with respect to the AutoVPS, the Karpeles company, right, is another one of Mark Karpeles' company, right?
MR. DRATEL: By the way, silkroadmarket.org moved from one Karpeles company to another Karpeles company, right, at one point, from KalyHost to XTA?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was, yeah, I believe registered through the one and then I think the domain name server changed over to XTA, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And those subpoenas -- I mean, the warrants that you got to look at those emails was part of your investigation of Mr. Karpeles, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it was.
MR. DRATEL: But, in fact, you did not get those emails, they were not produced until months after Mr. Ulbricht was arrested, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It took a while for the return to come back, yes.
MR. DRATEL: If we can look at Government's 149, please, if we could go to the bottom, the very bottom, please, to the URL.
In fact, that's from archive.org in March of 2011, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I believe March 4.
MR. DRATEL: That's what that 20110304 is right after web slash, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it's the date.
MR. DRATEL: So that's the date that appeared -- going back, archive.org, again just to refresh, just captures pages of the Internet, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It does.
MR. DRATEL: And then it puts them in an archive, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It maintains it, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And what they do at the bottom in that webarchive.org URL, the Internet address, is that it tells you what date it captured it, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: So it captured this particular screen March 4, 2011, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: March 4, 2011, yes.
MR. DRATEL: By the way, if we go back up to the message, it's from Silk Road staff, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was signed, yes, Silk Road staff.
MR. DRATEL: Not Dread Pirate Roberts or anything like that, right? There's no Dread Pirate Roberts there?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That didn't come until I believe January 2012.
MR. DRATEL: Correct. At one point you showed us I think it's Government Exhibit 123, the Dread Pirate Roberts profile on Silk Road, the profile page and the registration?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yeah.
MR. DRATEL: Do you recall?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I recall, yes.
MR. DRATEL: You don't know when that may have been changed to the name Dread Pirate Roberts from another username, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That one was the Silk Road account that changed to Dread Pirate Roberts after he announced his new name on that post.
MR. DRATEL: Now, let's look at Government Exhibit 150 which we just saw this morning. Can we look on the left side. There's a date of registration -- no, further down, right there.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: It's registered on February 28, 2011, right?
MR. DRATEL: And then it expires -- it expired February 28, 2012. It says "expires on," right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it did.
MR. DRATEL: Now, if we look to the right side, that's the one by Richard Page, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The one on the left is by Richard Page, yeah.
MR. DRATEL: The one on the right, the registration date is May 18, 2012, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: That's roughly two and-a-half months after the expiration of the one on the left, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: So let's see who it's registered to as of May 18, 2012. Go down further. There it is. So it's registered to Qin Shu Tong, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: In China, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: In China.
MR. DRATEL: And you checked that out, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I looked into that, yes.
MR. DRATEL: No apparent connection to anything, right?
MR. DRATEL: So this particular registration with respect to anything connected to Richard Page was over by April of 2012, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It wasn't renewed and then it was bought by someone else.
MR. DRATEL: Right. Now, you talked about the emails you got from Mark Karpeles' companies, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Correct.
MR. DRATEL: Those are the only accounts at Google, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was -- for him, I believe there was a few. He had a personal one and then he had one that was to Evoni (ph) which is a company.
MR. DRATEL: But from Google?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It all is through Google, yes.
MR. DRATEL: You don't know about email accounts that he may have had on proprietary servers of his own, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I do not know of any.
MR. DRATEL: So you didn't get to look at those if they exist, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I didn't.
MR. DRATEL: Did you ever get to look at any of his Tor chats?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did not find any Tor chats from him.
MR. DRATEL: Any Java or Off The Record or Pidgin chats of his?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did not.
MR. DRATEL: Did you get anything from any other servers with respect to Mark Karpeles other than Google?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Nothing about -- I mean, we did a broader search on another individual from his company, but no.
MR. DRATEL: Do you know whether he keeps a journal?
MR. DRATEL: Going back to Dread Pirate Roberts for a second, that is announced in the early part of 2012, right, February 2012?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes. I believe so.
MR. DRATEL: Now, Mr. Karpeles owns web hosting companies, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He does.
MR. DRATEL: A number of them?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He is -- yeah, well, KalyHost and then he has the AutoVPS, which is a virtual server hosting.
MR. DRATEL: And XTA, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: XTA, I believe that was the name server. I don't know if that was -- you might be able to register sites on that, too.
MR. DRATEL: But a web host can monitor the traffic of their customers, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I believe so, yes.
MR. DRATEL: In fact, they can also set rules for their customers, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They can.
MR. DRATEL: They also know identifying information about the people who rent space on their server, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They should have, yeah, like registration information or things that are provided to them, yes.
MR. DRATEL: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's okay. It's just basic information, whatever is provided, as well as, like, account billing information they should have.
MR. DRATEL: And also IP addresses and things like that. In the way that the server connects to the outside world, the web host knows all of that because it comes through their equipment, right, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They should be able to tell that, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Kind of like a landlord, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: That's a way to describe it, yes.
MR. DRATEL: The same thing is true of anyone who runs a bitcoin exchange, right, in terms of knowing about their account holders?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It changed over time. I think originally a lot of them didn't require very much information to register an account, but a lot of them changed where they started requiring sort of know your customer information. Some actually requires Social Security numbers.
MR. DRATEL: But also they can monitor account activity and account movement, they're in a perfect position to do that because it all has to come in and out of their exchange, right?
MR. TURNER: Object; foundation.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. DRATEL: As part of your investigation, you looked at MtGox records, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. DRATEL: And you looked at how exchanges operate, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. DRATEL: And exchanges have all of the information with respect to transactions that their account holders do in the context of bitcoins? Everything that goes through that exchange is information that's -- that the bitcoin exchange has?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It should be visible to them; yes.
MR. DRATEL: So any of the tracing that you could do on the block chain, the bitcoin exchange can certainly do with respect to each account holder?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They should.
MR. DRATEL: Now, we had a car rental analogy yesterday about bitcoin and about servers and rentals. Using bitcoin and even in the context of web hosting, so you may have a fleet of cars that you own but people are driving them but you can put a GPS in there, right, and know exactly what everyone is doing in every one of your cars, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: You could.
MR. DRATEL: Now, the bitcoin issue: Total commissions collected by Silk Road totaled -- as computed by the government, 614,305 bitcoins was the total commissions collected by Silk Road during the course of its operations, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection; foundation for this witness.
THE COURT: Lay a foundation for this witness.
MR. DRATEL: You looked at Silk Road, right, as a business, correct, you examined it in terms of revenue and things like that, right?
MR. TURNER: Objection; form, vagueness.
THE COURT: I'll let you answer it if you understand the question.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I mean, I reviewed the site. I reviewed the transactions on it, the vendors, what was publicly available to me.
MR. DRATEL: All right. And you are also familiar with the complaint in this action, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The complaint for Mr. Ulbricht?
MR. DRATEL: Against Mr. Ulbricht?
MR. DRATEL: The complaint -- so you know that the amount of bitcoins the government computed for the commissions for Silk Road were 614,305 bitcoins?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I'd have to see the complaint, but yes, it sounds right.
MR. DRATEL: I'll show you what we'll mark as Defendant's I for identification and just ask you to read that paragraph, please.
THE COURT: So he said this is consistent with what he thinks. This is just to refresh his recollection?
MR. DRATEL: Correct.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Okay.
MR. DRATEL: Does that refresh your recollection that the government computed the amount of bitcoins of commission -- I'm sorry -- that the amount of commissions Silk Road earned during the course of its existence up until the point of Mr. Ulbricht's arrest was 614,305 bitcoins?
MR. TURNER: Your Honor, object. Again, a foundation and also beyond the scope of redirect.
THE COURT: I'll allow this one because we're into it just to finish it off.
You may answer.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It does reflect that, yes.
MR. DRATEL: And that would be -- and at the time of Mr. Ulbricht's arrest, the government put the total revenue of Silk Road at $1.2 billion, right, in current -- in the value of bitcoin at the time of his arrest, right?
MR. TURNER: Objection; foundation, relevance and beyond the scope of redirect.
THE COURT: All three of those are true.
Why don't you try it a different way --
MR. DRATEL: The government --
THE COURT: -- with this witness.
MR. DRATEL: Sure.
MR. DRATEL: The government was looking to estimate or get a handle on the revenue that Silk Road had earned during the period of time from the beginning of its existence through Mr. Ulbricht's arrest, correct?
THE COURT: Let me ask it this way: I want to see whether or not this is the right witness for this.
Were you involved in the efforts by the government to calculate the total number of transactions on Silk Road?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, I was not.
THE COURT: Were you involved in any efforts by the government to calculate not only the number of transactions, but any corresponding value in terms of bitcoins or U.S. Dollars at any particular point in time?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, I was not.
THE COURT: I think you'll need another witness for these questions.
MR. DRATEL: I have nothing further.
THE COURT: All right. Thank you.
Mr. Turner, are we okay or do we need a break? Let me take a look at the jury. We're all right. Let's continue. Thank you. This will be the end of this witness. I think we're almost done. We'll see how this goes. There's always a bit of back and forth, but I think we're close.
MR. TURNER: Mr. Evert, if you can put GX 134 back on the screen. The passport, can you zoom in on the bottom dates there.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. TURNER:
MR. TURNER: The date of issue on the passport is what, Agent Der-Yeghiayan?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The date that the government issued that document.
MR. TURNER: Right. But what does it appear here?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: April 26, 2012.
MR. TURNER: Any trips that the defendant took before this date, there are not going to be stamps on the passport, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not on this passport, no.
MR. TURNER: KalyHost. In terms of monitoring or collecting information about its customers, when you registered a website on KalyHost, you didn't have to verify your information, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, I did not.
MR. TURNER: And in terms of their ability to see what IP addresses you're logging in from, if you're coming in through Tor, can they see your true IP address?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They would see the Tor exit node.
MR. TURNER: Can they see your true IP address?
MR. TURNER: Mises.org, you said is a libertarian website, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, it is.
MR. TURNER: And it's a particular brand of libertarianism, is that right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I believe so, yes.
MR. DRATEL: Objection.
THE COURT: There's very little you can do on this. I'll allow one more question on it.
MR. TURNER: You looked at posts on mises.org, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: Were there terms that were commonly discussed on the website?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There were commonalities, I mean, the way the people spoke on there.
MR. TURNER: Did they speak about agorism?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: They did.
MR. TURNER: And you mentioned some names. Samuel Konkin and Murray Rothbard, did those names come up?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, they did.
MR. TURNER: Not just on the liberty whatever it is you were looking at, but across the site, is that right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was not just on Liberty Student's account. It was across the site.
MR. TURNER: Users of that site generally were interested in those concepts and authors?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: There was discussions about those authors, yes.
MR. TURNER: Did you find any profile in liberty reserve -- excuse me -- any profile on mises.org in the defendant's name?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: With the defendant's picture on it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: Did you find a profile of the defendant on YouTube?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: With the defendant's name on it?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: And the defendant's picture on it?
MR. TURNER: Did you see the subscriptions on the YouTube page?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: I did.
MR. TURNER: Did they include any subscriptions to mises.org?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Yes, there were.
MR. TURNER: No further questions.
THE COURT: Thank you.
MR. DRATEL: A couple, your Honor just based on that, based on that.
THE COURT: My goodness. Okay. Just two or three.
MR. DRATEL: Yes.
RECROSS EXAMINATION BY MR. DRATEL:
MR. DRATEL: With respect to travel, your records go back before April 2012 with that passport, right, your database goes back much further than that, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Not on that particular passport --
MR. DRATEL: Not the passport. For Mr. Ulbricht, when you looked at the database for travel in and out of the United States, it's not limited to the time of that passport?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: No, it's not.
MR. DRATEL: It goes well before that, correct?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: The travel history is not based on the passport.
MR. DRATEL: And with respect to --
THE COURT: That was two.
MR. DRATEL: I'm sorry?
THE COURT: I was counting. That was two. You get two more.
MR. DRATEL: Mr. Ulbricht had his accounts on mises.org and YouTube in his own name, right?
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: He did.
MR. DRATEL: Mr. Athavale, you associated him with an alias, correct?
MR. TURNER: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
MR. DRATEL: And you said the commonalities that you found with respect to the mises.org posts of Liberty Student and DPR you sent to a college professor for analysis, right?
MR. TURNER: Objection; asked and answered and relevance.
THE COURT: It's been asked and answered.
You can answer it again.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: It was analyzed; yes.
THE COURT: We're all set.
You're all done, Mr. Dratel?
MR. DRATEL: Yes. Thank you.
THE COURT: Thank you. You may step down, sir.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thank you.
(Witness excused)
THE COURT: We're going to go on to your next witness, ladies and gentlemen. And maybe this is a good time, just because we're at the next witness, to take a quick break. Let's not take a long break. Come back in. Just to stretch our legs. We'll get the next witness already on the stand just to save some time and we'll start right up. So it's just a five-minute, seven-minute break as quickly as we can get out and get back in.
(Jury excused)
(Continued on next page)
(In open court)
THE COURT: This was to take a quick break before we get the next witness out. If we can get him or her on the stand. Is it still Mr. Kiernan?
MR. TURNER: Yes.
THE COURT: All right. Is there anything you folks want to raise? I want to take a quick break.
MR. TURNER: An issue to flag: We want a jury instruction about this Anand Athavale thing, that the testimony about the mises.org cannot come in in order to prove that Anand Athavale was an alternative perpetrator. No link was made in any authentic way.
THE COURT: Why don't you do this: If you are asking for an instruction, draft up something, share it with Mr. Dratel. If you can't come to any agreement, you'll present that to me without agreement. And if you can, then I would consider what you folks prepare, but the request is noted.
MR. TURNER: Thank you.
MR. DRATEL: Just one other thing, 151 we never received until this morning. We keep getting exhibits on the fly, and I just wish that we could have a stationary target to prepare from. That's all I'm asking.
THE COURT: It was, I think, in the nature of rebuttal.
MR. DRATEL: We got it when he testified.
THE COURT: Sometimes they're hard to get in advance.
MR. DRATEL: I literally got it handed to me during the examination.
MR. TURNER: As I received it.
THE COURT: Do the best you can. I expect you'll do the best you can. Let's take a quick break.
(Recess)
(Continued on next page)
(In open court; jury present)
THE COURT: Mr. Kiernan, I'm going to ask you to remain standing and I'll have my deputy swear you in.
(Witness sworn)
THE COURT: Thank you, Mr. Kiernan. Please be seated, sir.
JARED DER-YEGHIAYAN: Thank you.
THE COURT: There's water there and I see you have a bottle of water also on the side.
It will be important for you to pull yourself up to the mic. and speak clearly and directly into the mic.
Mr. Howard.
THOMAS KIERNAN, called as a witness by the Government, having been duly sworn, testified as follows: