The Bitcoin community will feel relieved; the corrupt former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officer Carl Mark Force has been sentenced to 78 months (6 years and 6 months) for his crimes.
As per a Reuters report, Force has also apologized to the American public and to his family saying that he was sorry and that he lost it and also that he failed to understand a lot of it.
But the judge Richard Seeborg described his betrayal as ‘breathtaking’ and handed him a prison term which is still 9 months shorter than what the government had demanded.
As per a Bloomberg report the Judge called Carl’s fraud clever, sophisticated and “devious” and further, said that he “was the master of his fate in this whole disgraceful episode.”
On its part, the government had requested the court to impose a prison sentence of 87 months (7 years+3 months) plus three years of supervised release.
Carl was charged on Monday for stealing a large number of Bitcoin when he was part of the government’s investigation of ‘Silk Road.’
He extracted a large number of Bitcoin and then diverted them to his personal account.
During the course of arguments the defence had tried to seek a lesser term as they claimed that Carl was suffering from mental health issues, but this was vehemently opposed by the government.
The case took the Bitcoin community by the storm and also made it feel vulnerable, as none other than a law enforcer was found to be part of the scam.
Carl’s fate was sealed when he finally pleaded guilty to the charges of extorting many Bitcoins from the Silk Road‘s founder Ross Ulbricht.
The worse was that the Silk Road itself was an unregulated online marketplace from where a buyer could procure drugs by paying in Bitcoin.
In a 16-page plea agreement, Carl had also pleaded guilty to the charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice.
