Silk Road Defendant's New Lawyer Also Defended Gitmo Detainee

Has some high-profile cases of people in the federal government's crosshairs

For an attorney who's spent a career defending some of the most high-profile terrorism cases, a client accused of merely running a billion-dollar online narcotics market and money-laundering scheme may be a welcome change.

New-York-based lawyer Joshua Dratel has been hired to defend Ross Ulbricht, the 29-year-old man arrested earlier this month and accused of creating and managing the Silk Road, the anonymous online black market for drugs that generated as much as $1.2 billion in Bitcoin-based sales according to the FBI's criminal complaint against him. Ulbricht has until now been represented by San Francisco-based public defender Brandon LeBlanc, but is expected to be extradited this week from San Francisco to stand trial in New York.