Three years after American authorities shut down the iconic dark net market Silk Road, the legal battles surrounding the famous free-market drug website are still being waged around the world.
Gary Davis, an Irishman accused of being an administrator on the website that sold tens of millions of dollars in illegal drugs, has been ordered extradited to the United States, the Irish Times reports.
He allegedly operated under the name ‘Libertas’ during his time on Silk Road.
Davis faces charges on narcotics distribution, hacking, and money laundering. Facing a life sentence in prison, Davis’s lawyers claimed his detention in the U.S. would be inhuman and degrading.
The defense and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Professor Juan Mendez specifically pointed to New York City’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Davis would likely be held, as a facility with troubling conditions. The argument was rejected.
Davis is expected to appeal the decision once again.
Ross Ulbricht, who was found guilty of running Silk Road and punished with two life sentences, filed his own appeal earlier this month. His legal team argued his “convictions should be vacated, and a new trial ordered, or that he be re-sentenced before a different district judge.”
Silk Road’s alleged leaders aren’t the only defendants battling in court.
Shaun Bridges, a former Secret Service agent who stole at least $820,000 during the investigation into Silk Road, is appealing his own conviction.
Bridges’s lawyer, however, is pushing to get out of the “frivolous” appeal. Attorney Davina Pujari formally requested his withdrawal from the case last week.
Silk Road fell in October 2013. Shortly thereafter, Libertas emerged as a leader of the movement behind the site, one that boasted of free market ideals and an end to the drug war.
“No doubt we will all regroup elsewhere,” Libertas wrote in a widely read letter following Ulbricht’s arrest, “and I look forward to seeing all of you again, still free and still engaging in free trade without government interference into your personal affairs.”
