Ross Ulbricht news

Ross Ulbricht was sentenced to two life terms plus 40 years in prison for running the darknet website “Silk Road”. In this article I would like to present a few aspects of this case that I have not reported on before.

Deutsche Version

On Cipherbrain I have already reported several times about Ross Ulbricht. The native Texan (born 1984) was sentenced in 2015 to two life sentences without the possibility of parole plus 40 years for operating the darknet website “Silk Road”. Among other things, drugs could be bought there.

Quelle/Source: Lyn Ulbricht

Ulbricht’s mother as an activist

Ross Ulbricht was also the subject of the third episode on my YouTube channel “Kriminal Digital”.

In my opinion, the punishment for the crime Ulbricht committed is far too harsh. That’s why I, like nearly 500,000 others now, have signed an online petition calling for Ulbricht’s release. October 1 of this year marks the ninth anniversary of the Silk Road operator’s arrest.

Quelle/Source: Ross Ulbricht

Fortunately, Ulbricht has a family that stands by him. His mother, Lyn Ulbricht, works almost full-time to advocate for her son. She gives talks, appears in the media and organizes various online activities. Kindly, Lyn Ulbricht also gave me an interview, which I published on my blog.

There are numerous videos on YouTube that feature Lyn Ulbricht. For example, here is an interview with her and Ross’ father:

The feature film

Because of the Kirminal Digital episode, I’ve been looking into the Ross Ulbricht case again in the last few weeks. In doing so, I came across a few things that I was not aware of before. In particular, I was completely unaware that a feature film was released last year in which the story of Ulbricht is told. The flick is called Silk Road: Lords of the Darknet. Here is the trailer:

I found the film quite exciting. It is a classic Hollywood thriller in which, in addition to Ulbricht, the focus is on an FBI agent who gets himself involved in illegal machinations. The latter part of the story is not the product of a screenwriter’s imagination, but is based on fact: two investigators succumbed to the lure of easy money during the hunt for Ulbricht and pocketed money for themselves. The two were later sentenced to several years in prison.

Too much of a gamble?

What I also didn’t know: According to various sources, Ulbricht was offered a deal after his arrest (a so-called plea bargain, which is possible under U.S. law): If he confessed, he would get off with a prison sentence of a certain length – early release not excluded. Whether the sentence offered was ten years or whether it would have been longer is not entirely clear. What is clear, however, is that no plea bargain was reached. If Ulbricht had indeed rejected such a plea bargain, he would undoubtedly have miscalculated badly.

In court, Ulbricht tried to downplay his involvement in the Silk Road project. He had indeed founded the website and operated it at the moment of his arrest, but in the meantime someone else had been responsible for it. This line of defense, however, went thoroughly awry. In the end, as mentioned, there were two life sentences without the right of early release on parole (“Life without Parole”) plus 40 years.

How realistic is a pardon?

Under U.S. law, only the U.S. president (in other cases, the governor of the respective state, which is not relevant here) can revoke a life-without-parole sentence. This is known as “presidential pardon.” While US presidents make frequent use of this right (Donald Trump alone pardoned 237 people), life-without-parole convicts are very rarely among them.

I have only been able to locate one case at all where a U.S. president pardoned a person sentenced to Life-without-Parole: in 2018, Donald Trump gave his Presidential Pardon to Alice Marie Johnson, a drug smuggler. Johnson had spent 21 years behind bars at that point. Unlike Ulbricht, she had been sentenced “only” to life in prison without the possibility of parole. If any reader knows of other such cases, I would be interested to know.

Traditionally, a U.S. president pardons a number of offenders shortly before his departure. Donald Trump also did this on January 19, 2021, and apparently he also considered Ulbricht. However, he decided against it.

One problem with this is that there are currently no less than 500,000 people incarcerated for drug offenses in the United States. Most of these are petty criminals. The sentences they have to serve are usually disproportionately high, because as part of the “War on Drugs,” the United States is focusing on deterrence. Nevertheless, I think it is justified to support Ross Ulbricht. I hope he doesn’t have to spend the rest of his life in prison.

If you want to add a comment, you need to add it to the German version here.
Follow @KlausSchmeh

Further reading: AN0M: FBI ermittelt dank manipulierter Verschlüsselungs-App Hunderte von mutmaßlichen Verbrechern

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13501820
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/763282653806483/