Federal agent was investigated during Silk Road trial

by Elise Viebeck - 04/02/15 1:36 PM ET

Secrets from the latest Silk Road trial are starting to spill out.

Documents revealed this week that a former federal agent was secretly investigated for profiting from the illicit website during a trial for Ross W. Ulbricht, who was convicted of running the site in February.

The former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Carl Mark Force, was arrested in Baltimore on Friday. He had resigned from the agency last year when his activities came under suspicion.

{mosads}Lawyers involved in the Ulbricht case had known for months that the investigation was taking place. Ulbricht’s defense team wanted to use the information during the trial to argue that the government’s hands were not clean.

Judge Katherine B. Forrest, who held a closed hearing on the topic on Dec. 15, prohibited the defense from using the information out of concerns that it would alert Force to the probe and he would flee.

An extensive back-and-forth took place prior to that decision, according to The New York Times, which reported on the court documents.

Force and a former Secret Service agent, Shaun Bridges, were charged with stealing money they recovered from Silk Road while investigating the site.

The federal agents were part of task force that ultimately shut down the Silk Road website in 2013. Bridges surrendered to law enforcement on Monday.