The chat logs were stored by Ross Ulbricht on his personal encrypted laptop and were also used as evidence against Carl Force.

I didn't know that, interesting. Still though, those conversations may not have happened had Force not been trying to extort him. I haven't looked at the case in a while so thanks for bringing that up. I still think being a crooked gov. agent makes you a scumbag. I don't know enough about the law to know if an appeal is possible, but if the "murder plot" evidence was mostly based on conversations with Force and the evidence he provided to Ulbricht about a threat, it does seem a bit dodgy. If he tells RU that he is being targeted, tries to extort him, and otherwise introduces those elements into the equation it seems like it is self-serving for his extortion attempt. Also, if you have a source I am interested. Why would you keep unencrypted chat logs discussing murder on your PC?

He kept encrypted chat logs, presumably because he thought the encryption would keep it safe from the police.

He also kept a diary. From the sentencing proceedings at http://motherboard.vice.com/read/unsealed-transcript-shows-h... :

Then, in Government Exhibit 241, March 2014, you wrote a journal of short snippets of your day and you write -- and each of these snippets is going to be one after another, they're just tiny snippets with a period in between:

March 28: "Being blackmailed with user info. Talking with large distributor, (hell's angels)."

Then, March 29th: "Commissioned hit on blackmailer with angels."

April 1: "Got word that blackmailer was executed. Created file upload script." So, you went back to the technical work right after getting word that the blackmailer had been executed. "Started to fix problem with bond refunds."

Government Exhibit 936 details communications relating to that hit further. Apparently you were sent a photo of the hit. The photo was no longer in existence, you acknowledge receiving the photo and deleting it.

A short time later you wrote, on April 6: "Make sure backup crons are working. Gave angels go ahead to find tony76." Who was the subject of the next hit. "Cleaned up unused libraries on server."

Two days later on April 8 you write: "Sent payments to angel for hit on Tony76 and his three associates. setting up hecho as standby" -- I have no idea what that is -- "refactored main and category pages to be more efficient."

> those conversations may not have happened had Force not been trying to extort him

The court has already heard their complaints on that and ruled against them. His lawyer didn't even mention entrapment as a defense, so it's probably waived, but it wouldn't have bought him much anyhow.

There really are no legal defenses available for spending a day or two thinking about having someone killed for threatening to expose your crimes.

But yes, the scumbag agent who committed crimes of his own will get punished for that.