I reduced it to only 2 assumptions about this:
1. Chatlogs/Journal are planted by someone else and therefore they are untrue
2. Chatlogs/Journal are not planted and therefore representing the truth
1.
If the logs telling the truth, Ross at least "thought" he was hiring a hitman and he also "thought" that the job was done several times. He never gave up the site, but he created the lie about this to protect his business, he knew was illegal. He places notes about the murders side by side with some trivial server issues, like (a. watched the pic of a tortured to death guy. b. Server got DDosed)
That speaks a clear language: This guy turned from a nerd into a psychopath and seem to deserve the sentence.
2.
If all the files had been planted by someone else, we only have his statement, that "he is the founder of the site" and he "gave it to someone else" and he "was tricked back into the SR administration site". Poor Ross beeing the fall guy for the "Real DPR" (Karpeles, Variety Jones aka Cimon etc)
Everything looks clear at version 1., but there's a lot of room to speculate about 2.
If Ross was framed, it was most likely not the FBI. It might be possible when I wear my tinfoil baseball cap, but, cmon....
Let's say every statement from Ross/Dratel is true and he was framed by a hacker, who maybe has planted all the proof on his pc, it would have made sense for the defense to present "The Real DPR" as beeing the hacker with the masterplan instead of Karpeles. The "Real DPR" who opened Silkroad 2 just a few weeks after the arrest of Ross Ulbricht and the closing of SR1. He later gave the site up again to another fall guy: Blake Benthall ("Defcon") . The "Real DPR" is still out there!
Possible, that "Variety Jones" aka "Cimon" and "The Real DPR" are the same person:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/who-is-variety-jones-935434I also can imagine that 1. is right and "The Real DPR" / Variety Jones still framed him at some point, when SR got too much publicity.
Side story: Possible that the hacker Variety Jones found the chatlogs about the hitman stories on Ross' computer and thought "What a fucking asshole. I will teach him how Kingpin wannabees end up"
Best movie title so far: "Variety Jones"