That's terrible news. He didn't do anything ethically wrong.
He was BitInstant's AML compliance officer. By taking the job, he accepted a duty to report money laundering and ensure his company was complying with all relevant laws. The moment this duty conflicted with his own sense of ethics, he should have quit. Whether money laundering is ethical is beside the point, since he voluntarily agreed to enforce the laws (and the money laundering charge was dropped anyway).
Throughout all this, I've been wondering how much he was actually complicit in the Silk Road stuff. Apparently he knew that btcking had something to do with the Silk Road, but was it just a bit of passing knowledge, or was he actually very purposefully trying to help btcking with money laundering? I'd feel better if it was the latter, since at least he'd have known the risks ahead of time.
It was the latter. Not only that, he used his position in the company to prevent btcking's transactions from being flagged as suspicious, and hide those transactions from the BitInstant's founder, Gareth Nelson. He abused his power in a blatantly illegal and unethical way, that's all there is to it.
