Again from reading the complaint it looks like entrapment. Most of what they quote looks analogous to a car company saying their car is very fast and then an undercover cop asking if that means it's fast enough to outrun the police if they use it as a getaway vehicle. Confirming that factually yes it would be seems some way short of conspiracy. No "real" crime is committed in answering such questions truthfully. Creating a conspiracy charge out of those answers looks like a stretch to me.
If the facts, as presented in the article and linked complaint, hold up in court then the conspiracy charge is likely to stick and any claims made regarding entrapment will not be made by the defense because counsel for the defendant is unlikely to harbor a desire to be laughed at in court by a judge.
Given that you have not included links to support your own conclusions, the same could be said about your comment.
If you need links of supporting evidence I suggest you and parent poster try using Google. Easy to understand explanations will be available for you on the first page of hits.
They're not being charged with creating an illegal phone, they being charged with conspiracy to import a controlled substance. Making an encrypted phone is perfectly legal, it became a conspiracy when they agreed to tamper with evidence for a client who had already stated they intend to use their service for drug trafficking communications (which was explicitly acknowledged.) All they had to do was make it clear to their customers that they didn't want to know the details of what they were using the phones to discuss, and refuse to do business with anyone who mentions illegal activity to them.
>For one, this is the part that looks a lot like entrapment.
How so? The undercover agents asked if they could use the service to communicate about drugs (implying that's what they would use it for) and the company agreed. The agents then asked them to wipe a phone that had been captured by the police and the company knowingly tampered with evidence on their behalf. Merely providing someone with an opportunity to participate in a crime isn't entrapment.