SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A Secret Service agent was sentenced Monday to seven years in federal prison for money laundering and obstructing justice during the Silk Road drug investigation.
Shaun W. Bridges, 33, of Laurel, Md., was assigned to the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force from 2012 to 2014. Silk Road was an online marketplace, mostly for illegal drugs, run by Ross Ulbricht aka Dread Pirate Roberts. He was sentenced in February this year to life without parole for money laundering, computer hacking and conspiracy to deal drugs.
Bridges used information he got from the investigation to reset passwords and PIN numbers and move 20,000 bitcoins, worth $350,000 at the time, into his own accounts, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Monday.
Ulbricht tried to kill the man from whom Bridges stole the bitcoins, prosecutors said.
Bridges admitted he eventually changed the stolen bitcoins into $820,000 in cash.
Bridges is the second drug agent to be sentenced in the case. DEA agent Carl M. Force, 46, of Baltimore was sentenced in October to 6½ years in federal prison for swiping $700,000 in digital currency while he was on the Baltimore Silk Road Task Force.
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