A federal judge on Monday sentenced a former Secret Service agent to
nearly six years in prison following his conviction on charges related
to the theft of electronic currency during a high-profile investigation
into the online drug bazaar
Silk Road.
Shaun Bridges' attorneys had
sought a three-year prison term, but US District Judge Richard Seeborg
said Bridges' behaviour was a "shocking and reprehensible abandonment of
his public duty."
"This to me is an extremely serious crime
consisting of the betrayal of public trust by a federal law enforcement
agent," Seeborg said before issuing the 71-month prison sentence. "And
from everything I see, it was motivated entirely by greed."
Bridges,
who prosecutors said had previously spent time protecting the
president's family, pleaded guilty in August to money laundering and
obstruction charges and acknowledged stealing $820,000 worth of Bitcoin
after getting access to Silk Road, the multimillion-dollar marketplace
for illegal drugs and other contraband.
Bridges was part of a task
force investigating Silk Road. Prosecutors said in court Monday that
Bridges then tried to pin the theft on a witness who was cooperating
with the investigation, prompting Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht to
take out hits on the witness' life.
Seeborg said it was
"inexcusable" for a federal agent to put a cooperating witness at risk
in that way. A tearful Bridges told the judge before his sentencing that
he had accepted responsibility for his crime and had not spent any of
the money he took.
"I obviously have lost a lot, a very illustrious career," he said.
Ulbricht
was sentenced in May to life in prison after he was convicted of
charges accusing him of operating the website for nearly three years
from 2011 until his 2013 arrest.
Prosecutors say he collected $18
million in Bitcoins through commissions on tens of thousands of drug
sales while operating the site using the alias, "Dread Pirate Roberts,"
an apparent reference to a main character in "The Princess Bride," the
1987 comedy film based on a novel of the same name.
A Drug
Enforcement Administration agent on the Silk Road task force, Carl
Force, was charged separately with selling information about the
investigation and pleaded guilty to extortion and other charges. He was sentenced to 6.5 years in prison in October.
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