Ross Ulbricht's OkCupid profile.

OkCupid

Government prosecutors say Ross Ulbricht is the mastermindbehind Silk Road, the most successful drug-selling market on the Internet. He's currently ontrial facing federaldrug-trafficking charges and could be sent to prison for life, if convicted. Duringtrialyesterday, asan IRS special agent was showing the jury various e-mails of Ulbricht's, his OkCupid username, ross-0,wasshown in court.

On the profile, Ulbricht gives vague answers about his employment, but hardly looks the part of an alleged kingpin.Hedescribes himself as a "scientist turned entrepreneur." After building "several businesses over the years," he's now "an independent investor and plotting my next venture," he explained. He describes himself as working in technology and doesn't disclose his income.

The writeupincludes plenty of typical dating-profile fare:a photo of him witha dog ("women are helpless against his powers," reads the caption), a photo of him jumping off a cliff into a body of water, a photo of him in a toga for Halloween. "Doing my best hugh hefner," he writes in a caption to a photo of himself in a robe and smoking from a pipe. In another photo, from Thailand, he feigns shock posing in front of what he describes as a "shrine of dildos."Under "first things people notice about me," he says "many think I look like Robert Pattinson [the lead actor of the Twilight film series] at first."

OkCupid

He lists The Power of Now, a best-selling book by Eckhart Tolle that touts itself as a "Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment," as one of his favorite books. For music, he states that Electric Light Orchestras Im Alive is his theme song.

Theprofile shows him as last logging into the site onSeptember 29, 2013, just two days before he was arrested in a San Francisco library.

Federal agents who arrested him took his laptop and have used files on it as evidence against him in court. According to prosecutors, Ulbricht'slaptop held a log of managementactivities related to Silk Road, which the government is using as evidence against him. The week of September 11, 2013, the log describes getting "covered in poison oak" and going on "a first date with amelia from okc."

Another fileon that laptop, a journal entry read aloud in court last week, echoes the "scientist turned entrepreneur" language inUlbricht'sOKC profile, althoughwith adarker bent.

Originally posted here:
On OkCupid, Ross Ulbricht was a scientist turned entrepreneur