Originally Posted by kane

I am basing my information on what I read in the bit Wired article which made it seem like the charges were dropped because one of the people involved was a DEA agent who also turned out to be blackmailing Ross. In the other instance he supposedly contacted Hell's Angels and paid them to kill people, but they just took his money and either faked the murders or just ignored his orders. Of course, since all of this was done via Bitcoin and through encrypted chat would hard to know for sure exactly what happened.

This is a excerpt from the Wired story in regards to the murder stuff."Ross, who declined to be interviewed for this story, was not charged with any murders. The case involving Green, which came out of Baltimore, was a separate indictment. (It is still pending.) The New York case dropped the five other murders after further investigation revealed that the whole thing was likely an elaborate catfish-as-blackmail scheme that snookered Ross out of a lot of money. But in all cases, the prosecution argued, Ross believed he was executing people, even receiving photographic evidence faked to prove it. For dramatic effect, the prosecutors read aloud selections of Ross? conversations where he sounded like a heartless mafia boss."

It sounds like they at least had evidence that he tried to carry out murder for hire plots.