Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht's life sentence appeal rejected

[Shawn Knight]

Ross Ulbricht will spend the rest of his life behind bars. After being found guilty in 2015 of seven counts relating to the creation and operation of the massive online drug trafficking website Silk Road, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday rejected Ulbricht’s appeal to overturn his life sentence.

Ulbricht argued in his appeal that the district court committed several errors that deprived him of his right to a fair trial and incorrectly denied his motion for a new trial. What’s more, he asserted that the life sentence was both procedurally and substantively unreasonable.

The three-judge panel on Wednesday affirmed both Ulbricht’s conviction and sentence in all respects.

Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht's lead defense attorney, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Wired.

The judges noted in their ruling that although they might not have imposed the same sentence themselves in the first instance, on the fact of this case, a life sentence was “within the range of permissible decisions” that the district court could have reached.

The Silk Road, which operated using the Tor network, launched in February 2011 and persisted as the preeminent online black market for all sorts of criminal activity until it was shut down upon Ulbricht’s arrest in October 2013.

After his conviction in 2015, Ulbricht petitioned for a new trial but was denied.

Image courtesy CoinDesk

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/69530-silk-road-mastermind-ross-ulbricht-life-sentence-appeal.html

 

[VitalyT]

Did he only create and maintain the website, or did he actually move $hit through it for himself?

As a web-developer, I'm genuinely interested in how to avoid a life sentence through some sort of misunderstanding

 

[Uncle Al]

It's simple ..... if it smells bad, avoid it. No job is worth a lifetime behind bars .....

 

[MilwaukeeMike]

K, I was going to trash TS here for leaving out a HUGE detail, but when I went looking for it online, I had to read down a bit to the part where he got busted trying to put a hit out on FIVE PEOPLE. That's attempted murder - and the only reason he's not guilty of it is because the feds he "hired" to do the killing turned out to steal some bitcoins in the course of the investigation and they had to drop it. But he still did it, and the judges knew that.... From the WIRED story..
https://www.wired.com/2017/05/silk-road-creator-ross-ulbricht-loses-life-sentence-appeal/

They note that the deaths of Silk Road customers don’t figure into the life sentence, so much as Ulbricht’s alleged attempts to pay for the murders of a witness, an informant, and three others.

 

[veLa]

I still think his punishment is too harsh.

 

[Evernessince]

Did he only create and maintain the website, or did he actually move $hit through it for himself?

As a web-developer, I'm genuinely interested in how to avoid a life sentence through some sort of misunderstanding

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_(marketplace

He was well aware of the activity on his website and actively encouraged criminal transactions.

"In March 2013, the site had 10,000 products for sale by vendors, 70% of which were drugs."

"In October 2014, there were 13,756 listings for drugs, grouped under the headings stimulants, psychedelics, prescription, precursors, other, opioids, ecstasy, dissociatives, and steroids/PEDs."

When your website has built in categories for different kinds of illegal drugs...

"Most products were delivered through the mail, with the site's seller's guide instructing sellers how to vacuum-seal their products to escape detection."

This says enough on it's own. Just a note, the US was the leading buyer of products with around 30% of total sales.

He paid multiple for multiple people to be killed and went under the name "Dread Pirate Roberts".

All in all, if you want to avoid a life sentence, do not enable the mass exchange of nearly everything illegal and leave evidence that you were enabling that kind of activity. eCommerce platforms aren't hard to stay above board with. For websites with user generated content it's much more tricky but the punishment for content related crimes is much lower simply because videos, music, ect can't kill people.

 

[300Hitter]

Did he only create and maintain the website, or did he actually move $hit through it for himself?

As a web-developer, I'm genuinely interested in how to avoid a life sentence through some sort of misunderstanding

Checkout the dark web documentary. Currently on Amazon prime.