A college friend of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road online exchange, testified on Thursday that he helped Ulbricht troubleshoot the site in its early days, providing more ammunition for federal prosecutors to make the case Ulbricht was the mastermind behind the notorious illegal goods marketplace.The testimony from Richard Bates could help federal prosecutors establish a timeline showing Ulbricht was heavily involved with the site beyond just creating it.Ulbricht has admitted to creating the Silk Road site in early 2011. According to prosecutors, it would be used to facilitate the exchange of $1.2 billion in illegal goods, mostly drugs. Ulbricht’s defense lawyer, Joshua Dratel, argues that Ulbricht started the site only as “an experiment” and handed off the site to other operators shortly after he started it. He rejoined immediately prior to his arrest, lured back in by the new operators to serve as a fall guy, according to Dratel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here