Clemency for Ross Ulbricht, Serving Double Life for a Website

change.org ^ | Aug 3 | FreeRoss.org

[RandFan]

This guy ran the 'Silk Road' a website on the dark web that allowed people to sell drugs and weapons through the mail and be paid in Bitcoin. He was busted at the local library where he administered the website.

Stupid I know but I'm not sure if its worthy of a double life sentence!

What do you think should happen to him?

[EEGator]

So he’s an offshoot of the CIA?...

[moovova]

NSA didn’t hire this guy?

Their loss.

[Theodore R.]

Time served should be sufficient for a commutation. But I doubt Trump will act. He has not responded to the pleas of Patti Stockman in Beaumont, TX, whose husband, Steve Stockman, is a political prisoner given an unusually harsh sentence for campaign finance violations. Stockman has petitioned for release with all the other diabetic inmates. Still in the Beaumont federal prison, he now has contracted COVID-19. You would think Trump would at the least release him to home confinement.

[DannyTN]

If he’s involved in the drug trade, he’s destroying lives.

I’m not that sympathetic.

[RandFan]

LOL!

Essentially yes but he was more brazen about it. The website was quite notorious for a while before they managed to find him.

I remember reading about in Wired Magazine (!).

It got a lot of attention so when they got hold of him they punished him harshly.

He was also making a lot of money several millions I believe. Maybe that has something to do with it as well.

[Timothy]

He made hundreds of millions and paid a hit man to kill a rival.

[Spacetrucker]

While I believe his offenses are worthy of severe criminal punishment, I also believe that his sentence is draconian. He should be credited with time served, five year ban on any Internet presents excepting an email address, and lifetime ban on any administrative role on the Internet.

[RandFan]

I had no idea about Stockman. I’m shocked to hear that ... He was a good congressman.

These harsh sentences for non-violent crimes are a real problem IMO

[Rdct29]

His sentence is ridiculous. I thought he hired or tried to hire someone to kill another person. It doesn't sound like he was convicted of soliciting someone to commit murder. I don't have any trust in the federal investigators and prosecutors who have been showing their corrupt nature for the last 4 years. Maybe he will get lucky and get released because of covid like some murderers have been.

[HamiltonJay]

What he did was a bit more than just set up a web site to sell dime bags..

All sorts of illegal things ran through his site, he was well aware of it.

Whether he deserves the sentence he got or not, we can discuss, but no way is this guy just some guy who helped facilitates dime bag Mary Jane transactions.

[RandFan]

There are always two sides to a story... I admit i’m not fully up to speed on the whole case ... seems a long time ago.

[Mr. Lucky]

Yeah, well who hasn’t done that?

[Responsibility2nd]

More.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht

[NRx]

According to Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Silk Road emerged as the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet at the time, serving as a sprawling black market bazaar where unlawful goods and services, including illegal drugs of virtually all varieties, were bought and sold regularly by the site’s users. While in operation, Silk Road was used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to well over 100,000 buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions."[13]

In October 2013, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shut down the website[14] and arrested Ross Ulbricht under charges of being the site's pseudonymous founder "Dread Pirate Roberts".[3] On 6 November 2013, Silk Road 2.0 came online, run by former administrators of Silk Road.[15] It was also shut down, and the alleged operator was arrested on 6 November 2014 as part of the so-called "Operation Onymous". Ulbricht was convicted of seven charges related to Silk Road in the U.S. Federal Court in Manhattan and was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.[1][16][17]

More here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace)

They above post predictably left out a lot of details, some of which are not pleasant. This guy was basically running an organized crime operation. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with a life sentence, but this was not a childish prank.

[Responsibility2nd]

More.... https://freeross.org/

[Responsibility2nd]

More here..... https://www.freerepublic.com/tag/rossulbricht/index

[RandFan]

Thank you for the wiki link:

‘In February 2015, Ulbricht was convicted of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics by means of the internet.[7] In May 2015, he was sentenced to a double life sentence plus forty years without the possibility of parole. ‘

So to be clear he was never convicted of this ‘hitman’ allegation or anything violent.

[Engedi]

Not worthy of that extreme sentence. Seems like over-kill.

[Yogafist]

It’s always someone else’s fault. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time. There are appeals, if any of this is true, it can be litigated.