More sentencing details on Silk Road dark web site – part 1

View of Mr. Bridges neighborhood for seven years. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

One more loose end on my reporting of the drug/body parts/contract hit/weapons/fake ID/explosives dark web site Silk Road:  sentencing for Shaun W. Bridges.

Update: After getting ready for followup to this post, I realized those are actually separate discussions. Thus, there will be no ‘part 2’ for this post.

He is the former Secret Service agent who, while assigned to the inter-agency task force investigating Silk Road, stole a large amount of bitcoins. He was sentenced to prison for 71 months.

The day before he was scheduled to report to prison he was trying to get out of the U.S. but was arrested for another theft of Bitcoins. He pled guilty and was sentenced to another 24 months, which the judge ordered to run consecutively.

He was also ordered to surrender 1,500 bitcoins, which were worth approximately $10.4 million at the time of his sentencing.

This post will discuss his sentencing. Next post will give some more background on his escapades which paid him a well-earned seven years in free federal housing.

I’ve previously walked through this exercise for Scott London and Keith Graves.

Release dates and actual time in prison

Previous post mention that on 12/7/18 Mr. Bridges was scheduled for release on 12/13/22.

Earlier post on 9/6/17 said his scheduled release was 3/17/21.

That is an additional 636 days, or about 20.9 months.

As a learning exercise for me and others who may be interested in the federal system, I’ll ponder those release dates and the related sentences.

In the US federal system there is no parole. However, for each full year of a sentence, a person is released 53 days early. This is to provide motivation for good behavior. Mess up while in prison and the feds can start pulling back those early release days.

In addition, prisoners are released to a half-way house for transition back into society. I haven’t figured out the timing for those arrangements.

So, the additional 20.9 months is actually the scheduled time in custody for a 24 month sentence less 53 days for each year, or 106 days.

Time in custody

Here is my calculation of the time in custody for the second sentence;

 

additional sentence, months          24.0
sentence in years            2.0
truncated years            2.0
days early release; 53 days / full year         106.0
months early release, truncated            3.5
estimated months in prison          20.5
full years            1.0
additional months            8.5

 

Here is my calculation of the expected time in prison, estimated date in custody, and the interplay of the two sentences. The first column is after sentencing for first conviction while awaiting second round of sentencing. Second column is after second sentence.

 

date of information 9/6/17 12/7/18
scheduled release 3/17/21 12/13/22
1st sentence             71             71
2nd sentence, consecutive             –             24
total sentence, in months             71             95
sentence in years          5.92          7.92
truncated years          5.00          7.00
days early release; 53 days / full year           265           371
months early release, truncated          8.72        12.20
estimated months in prison         62.28        82.80
full years          5.00          6.00
additional months          2.28        10.80
estimated incarceration date 1/7/16 1/19/16

 

My calculations show he was taken into custody in early January 2016. That is consistent with what I’ve read of when he was busted trying to flee the U.S.

Next post:  More info on his antics.

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