NEW YORK (AP) " Murder-for-hire allegations are central to a New York trial starting this week for a San Francisco man charged with running an online black market where drugs were sold as easily as books and electronics.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest concluded prosecutors could introduce evidence about six murder plots into Ross William Ulbricht's trial. Formal jury selection starts Tuesday.
Prosecutors say Ulbricht ran an underground website known as Silk Road, where hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, heroin and other drugs were sold to over 100,000 customers. Ulbricht has pleaded not guilty.
The government maintains that Ulbricht attempted to protect his operation by asking others to kill those who posed a threat to his business.
"The charges in this case are extremely serious: Ulbricht is charged not with participating in a run-of-the-mill drug distribution conspiracy, but with designing and operating an online criminal enterprise of enormous scope, worldwide reach, and capacity to generate tens of millions of dollars in commissions," the judge has written. "Evidence that defendant sought to protect this sprawling enterprise by soliciting murders-for-hire is, in this overall context, not unduly prejudicial."