Trump Grants Pardon to Silk Road Founder Ross Ulbricht, Citing “Ridiculous” Life Sentence

Trump introduced Tuesday that he granted a full and unconditional pardon to Ross William Ulbricht, the founding father of the infamous Silk Road darkish internet market. Ulbricht had been serving a life sentence after being convicted on fees of conspiracy to commit cash laundering, conspiracy to commit laptop hacking, conspiracy to visitors narcotics, and fascinating in a unbroken legal enterprise (generally referred to as the “kingpin charge”). Nevertheless, controversy surrounded his case—not solely as a result of severity of his sentence but additionally due to allegations of involvement in murder-for-hire schemes for which he was by no means charged.

Ulbricht, who created the Silk Road in 2011, ran the location as an nameless on-line market the place customers might purchase and promote unlawful items, together with medication, counterfeit paperwork, and hacking companies, utilizing cryptocurrency for transactions. At its peak, the Silk Road facilitated billions of {dollars} in offers, attracting world consideration and resulting in Ulbricht’s 2013 arrest. Whereas the Justice Division labeled the platform “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the Internet,” supporters have lengthy argued that Ulbricht’s sentence was extreme.

Although prosecutors offered proof throughout the trial that Ulbricht had solicited the homicide of people threatening his platform, together with an alleged plot to kill a former Silk Road worker turned informant, he was by no means formally charged with murder-for-hire. The federal government maintained that it uncovered messages and logs indicating Ulbricht paid a hitman—who turned out to be an secret agent—to hold out the killings. Nevertheless, no bodily violence resulted from these alleged plans, and the murder-for-hire claims had been ignored of his formal indictment. Critics argue that these allegations, whereas unproven in court docket, nonetheless performed a job in justifying the life sentence handed down by the decide.

Trump, in his announcement on Reality Social, criticized the dealing with of the case, calling Ulbricht’s life sentence “ridiculous” and accusing the authorized system of overreach. “I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross,” Trump wrote.

“This is a young man who was given an unjust sentence for something that should never have resulted in life behind bars,” Trump continued. He additionally expressed anger on the investigators and prosecutors, labeling them as a part of the broader difficulty of presidency “weaponization” he incessantly speaks out towards.

The Silk Road case was a groundbreaking authorized battle and one of many earliest examples of legislation enforcement cracking down on darkish internet marketplaces. However Ulbricht’s supporters, together with outstanding Libertarians, have persistently argued that his punishment was disproportionate to his crimes. In addition they level to alleged misconduct throughout the investigation, together with corruption amongst federal brokers concerned within the case.