Posted on 01/14/2025 3:12:16 PM PST by T Ruth
Last year on May 25, Donald Trump vowed to commute the sentence of early Bitcoin pioneer and Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht to time served if elected president. As we all know, Trump won the election and will take office one week from today.
This leaves a major question on the minds of Bitcoiners: Will Trump actually pardon Ross?
***
(Excerpt) Read more at bitcoinmagazine.com ...
Transcript of Sentencing Hearing
5 The Court finds that the evidence is clear and
6 unambiguous and it far exceeds the necessary preponderance
7 findings, that Ulbricht believed he was paying for murders of
8 those he wanted eliminated, and that he believed they had in
9 fact been murdered. He was told his first victim had a wife
10 and several children. That fact was known to Ulbricht and it
11 is never mentioned by him in connection with his consideration
12 of the murder. The consequences flowing from the murder of a
13 man with his family is never, so far as the Court can tell from
14 the record, considered.
15 When he commissioned the hit on other of what he
16 thought was one person, Tony76, he learned that Tony76 was
17 apparently someplace -- located someplace with three other
18 individuals. Ulbricht then agreed and paid for a hit on all
19 four of them. There is no evidence in the record that he knew
20 them -- these other three folks -- that he ever dealt with
21 these three folks or had any beef with them at all. He
22 commissioned the hit without regard to who they were, to the
23 fact that they had a right to life. He never asked if they had
24 families, he never expressed any concern for them at all.
25 The evidence of this murderous intent and the actions
1 specifically taken by Ulbricht to commission the hits is based
2 on trial exhibits including Ulbricht's own journal and his
3 chats with the individuals he hired to oversee the murders and
4 it was not, as I have said, role-playing.
5 He commissioned the hits, there is no discussion of
6 hypotheticals, he paid actual funds. He paid hundreds of
7 thousands of dollars which were, in fact, paid. He is told
8 when the murders are completed, he was provided with a photo of
9 the murder scene with random numbers that he had provided to
10 the would-be assassins. That there had been no confirmation of
11 any of the deaths does not eliminate the fact that he directed
12 violence and directed the use of violence.
***
13 On April 29 and then again on May 26, the Court
14 received five victim impacts statements which contained
15 additional detail the Court does rely upon that for its
16 findings herein.
***
5 For Preston B., he was a 16-year-old boy who received
6 a powerful synthetic drug called NBOM from a friend. The
7 friend made a statement in which he told the police, after the
8 decedent's accident, he purchased it from Silk Road to share
9 with his friends on prom night and that he had not purchased on
10 Silk Road before, that he had only ever used cannabis before.
11 The decedent is known to have ingested this drug and he had a
12 terrible reaction and jumped from a balcony of a hotel and he
13 subsequently, after being hospitalized, died.
14 The Court finds, by a preponderance of the evidence,
15 that Preston's death is properly associated with Silk Road and
16 that his death was related to a purchase of drugs from Silk
17 Road.
With all the critically important matters to which President Trump must give his attention, he should not waste two seconds on this murderous thug.
https://theweek.com/politics/donald-trump-black-market
Libertarians and the cryptocurrency community got Trump’s attention with their calls to have Ulbricht’s sentence commuted, and he has said several times that he would do so as president, including during speeches and in social media posts. What would it mean if Trump went through with this promise (which some have called hypocritical given his stance on drug dealers)?
I hope President trump Pardons him, Pardons Roger Ver, Pardons Edward Snowden, Pardons Julian Assange, Pardons Brian Kolfage, Pardons Douglas Mackey, Pardons the J6 political prisoners, Pardons all the grannies convicted for praying in front of abortion clinics, etc etc.
From your keyboard to Trumps EO list on day one.
I don’t have too much sympathy for Ross Ulbrecht.
If you were induced into the saying by false information, then you are relieved of any obligation to perform your promise. This is called fraud in the inducement.
I don't know what information President Trump was given, but if it wasn't complete and accurate, I would give him a pass for changing his mind.
Why is the Crypto community obsessed with freeing this scumbag?
If these allegations against him are true, how could you have sympathy for him?
Something we've certainly seen happen to people on our side.
But other than that possibility, I have no sympathy for him at all.
If he paid for someone’s murder, why wasn’t he tried for it ?
He was prosecuted by the FBI as a political target.
He was held in inhumane conditions to restrict contact with attorneys.
He has blocked from presenting parts of his defense, something the courts are doing too often these days.
Whatever he might do, the Feds are an even greater menace.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.