I heard that they caught Defcon because he registered SR2 in his real name? If this is true; are you kidding me? Any decent hacker could have told you how that would end. Your info, your payment method, the email you use, the way you put data onto the site.. all of that needs to be anonymous. How is this not obvious by now? Are there not any onion domain providers that take bitcoin as payment or something? I'm really surprised.
My best guess is that he didn't, but the Feds used illegal techniques to find him and now are saying he is stupid to cover that up. Judges and the conservative public like hearing about stupid criminals.