While looking at the sentencing of former Secret Service agent Shaun W. Bridges I learned a few more details of what he was up to while looting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoins. His sentencing is one of the loose ends on my posts about the Silk Road dark web site where you could buy any drugs, body parts, contract hits, weapons, explosives, or fake identification that your heart desired.
Some tidbits from a few articles on his antics:
12/7/15 – SFGate – Ex-Secret Service agent gets prison in S.F.-based Silk Road case – Good summary of first case. Sentenced 12/5/15 to 71 months, which is one month less than 6 years. Carl Force was sentenced on 10/19/15 to 6 1/2 years.
2/3/16 – Motherboard – Great Moments in Shaun Bridges, a Corrupt Silk Road Investigator – Article was written shortly after his re-arrest.
This guy had quite a career. Seriously. He was a successful hostage negotiator before joining Secret Service. He was on the Obama presidential protection detail and was a cyber currency expert while at the USSS.
He pulled a stolen $820K out of the Mr. Gox bitcoin exchange and a few days later completed paperwork for a raid on Mt. Gox and seizure of their assets. Feds think the raid was timed by him in order to hide his moving the funds and thus hiding his theft.
The raid compromised a criminal investigation into Mt. Gox, according to an Assistant US Attorney. His actions also compromised a number of other investigations, which the article says the feds say were all shut down.
What a guy. He not only ripped off hundreds of thousands of dollars of bitcoins, he also blew up an unspecified number of federal criminal investigations. An unknown number of other bad guys were never investigated and likely never charged due to his crime spree.
I’ve mentioned this before, but the article highlights that Mr. Bridges learned from cooperating witness Curtis Green how to steal and launder bitcoins, then while the interrogation was underway he took a break and stole some coins, then shifted the blame to the at-that-very-moment-cooperating Mr. Green.
Check this out for arrogance and cleverness: Back during the grand jury testimony investigating Mr. Bridges, his girlfriend was scheduled to testify against him. She asked for a week delay due to her schedule. On the weekend of the delay, she and he were married. When appearing before the grand jury she asserted spousal privilege.
A different article reports the oh-so-deeply-in-love couple has since divorced.
8/16/17 – Department of Justice – Former Secret Service Agent Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering – Pled guilty in 2015 to two counts (money laundering & obstruction of justice) for theft of $830K of bitcoins. New guilty plea is one count of money laundering for separate theft of 1,600 bitcoins worth estimated $395K at time of the theft.
11/7/17 – Department of Justice – Former Secret Service Agent Sentenced in Scheme Related to Silk Road Investigation – Sentence of 24 months, to be served consecutively to the previous 71 month sentence. The 1,600 stolen bitcoins were worth an estimated $10.4M on day of sentencing.
11/7/17 – ArsTechnica – After admitting to new crime, ex-Secret Service agent sentenced to 2 years – Mr. Bridges asked the judge for transfer to prison closer to his home in Maryland. The Terre Haute facility has no educational or recreational facilities. He asserted he gets about 1 hour every three days out of his one-man cell.
As of 12/11/18 the Bureau of Prisons still lists the Terre Haute facility as his residence. His register number is 20436-111.
Article says the feds hinted in 2016 filings that Bridges stole additional bitcoin after he signed his first plea deal.
He signed the first plea deal in late 2015 and was rearrested in early 2016. A different article mentioned the re-arrest was in January 2016.