Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Expects Trump to Keep His Promise and Release Him

At sentencing, the judge was also allowed to consider murder-for-hire allegations, even though they were never charged at trial. “Until the Supreme Court rules otherwise, such related but uncharged crimes can and are regularly evaluated by judges,” Richman says.

Former Homeland Security Investigations Jared Der-Yeghiayan said Ulbricht never fully acknowledged the damage caused by the sale of numerous drugs, including heroin and other opioids, on the Silk Road, and that he still had little to say about his actions in his public posts on Twitter. He claims to be remorseful. who is the agent Secretly infiltrated the Silk Road As part of the lawsuit against Ulbricht.

“The idea of ​​him being released doesn’t bother me at all,” says Der-Yeghiayan, who now works as head of strategic intelligence at cryptocurrency tracking firm Chainalytic. “It bothers me that there is now a perception that he did nothing wrong and that does not accept the facts of the case.”

Considering that Ulbricht has already spent 11 years in prison, the question remains whether this wrongdoing merits a life sentence. Leeza Garber, a law lecturer at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says Ulbricht’s harsh sentence may certainly be valid in a technical sense, but in thorny cases like this, legal issues can’t be fully isolated from ethical and political issues.

“Just because something is reasonable doesn’t mean it’s right,” Garber says. “We have very complex and contradictory views on the war on drug and prison use in this country. If you combine this with the idea that this crime occurred in part in cyberspace, the situation becomes extremely complex. “It’s hard to take into account this confluence of issues.”

Some prison reform advocates, some of whom supported Ulbricht’s clemency petition, believe sentencing rules need to change. They think there should be an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment and that parole should be reintroduced into the federal criminal system. They hope Ulbricht’s release can act as a catalyst.

“Ross has served too much time. He has been a model prisoner. He is a first-time non-violent offender. He poses zero safety risk to society,” said Alice Johnson, CEO of the justice reform foundation Taking Action for Good, who was also impeached by Trump in 2018 He was imprisoned for twenty years for drug trafficking before his life sentence was commuted. Ross’s case will pave the way for many others who were wrongfully sentenced to these brutal sentences to come home.”