Extradition ruling overturned for B.C. man accused in Silk Road trafficking case

This frame grab from Silk Road shows thumbnails for products allegedly available through the now-shuttered website. (AP / SilkRoadDrugs.org)

An extradition request for a B.C. man accused of trafficking drugs through the now-defunct Silk Road website has been approved by the province’s highest court.

A previous B.C. Supreme Court ruling found the evidence against James Ellingson insufficient to warrant handing him over to U.S. authorities—but was overturned last month in the B.C. Court of Appeal.

A three-justice panel ruled the original extradition judge erred by applying an “unduly critical lens” to the summary of evidence against Ellingson that was provided for his hearing.

Such summaries—known as a Record of the Case, or ROC—should be treated as “presumptively reliable,” and not scrutinized in the same way as actual evidence, Justice Geoffrey Gomery said in the panel’s March 22 decision.

“The judge drew adverse inferences from the requesting party’s failure to include in the ROC evidence or references to evidence that, in her view, could easily have been included,” Gomery added.

“She treated the ROC as though it were a statement of evidence and not a summary of evidence. These misdirections contributed to the judge’s conclusion that the ROC was so bereft of detail that it could not support committal.”

Ellingson was indicted in the U.S. in 2018 and accused in a litany of offences alleged to have occurred on the Silk Road marketplace between 2011 and 2013, when the site was shut down.

The ROC provided by U.S. authorities focused on an account called MarijuanaIsMyMuse. Justice Lisa Warren, who oversaw the original extradition hearing, found the summary made an adequate case that drugs were trafficked through the account, but not that Ellingson was personally implicated.

The B.C. Court of Appeal justices disagreed, pointing to several claims in the U.S. summary—including that Ellingson had login credentials for MarijuanaIsMyMuse, and that there were notations in his email that appeared to be drug weights, names and prices consistent with those sold through the account.

“The evidence is sufficient to implicate Mr. Ellingson,” Gomery said.

None of the evidence against Ellingson has been tested, however. Gomery noted that a Canadian court’s role in a U.S. extradition case is to “fulfill a narrow screening function.”

“The question is not whether the appellant has stated a strong case or one that is likely to succeed at trial,” he added. “It is presumptively reliable and the presumption is only rebutted on a showing of fundamental inadequacies or frailties.”

The panel set aside Warren’s previous order discharging Ellingson, and found there was no need for a new hearing in B.C. Supreme Court—instead ordering that the accused be extradited south of the border.

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s Lisa Steacy