Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Gets Life in Prison

Reporting from outside the courthouse, Kurt Loder caught up with Ross' mother, Lyn, and filmmaker Alex Winter.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Silk Road Creator Ross Ulbricht Gets Life in Prison

HD Video Download

As Brian Doherty reported earlier today, Ross Ulbricht, the operator of the online drug market Silk Road, was sentenced to life in prison by Judge Katherine Forrest in U.S. District Court earlier today.

Reporting from outside the courthouse, Reason TV Contributor Kurt Loder caught up with Alex Winter, whose new film Deep Web tells the behind-the-scenes story of Ulbricht's arrest and prosecution. (The film premiers on the Epix channel this Sunday.)

Read Loder's review of Deep Web.

Read Brian Doherty's December 2014 feature story on Silk Road: "How Buying Drugs Online Became Safe, Easy, and Boring."

Watch Nick Gillespie's Reason TV interview with Ross' mother, Lyn Ulbricht.

4 minutes and 37 seconds.

Hosted by Kurt Loder; Shot, produced, and edited by Jim Epstein, with help from Anthony L. Fisher.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube Channel to get automatic updates when new material goes live.

Comments

[BigFire]

Well, he did tried to have some of his minions murdered.

[Kevin47]

Did he? Those transcripts seemed rather obviously fabricated.

[Win Bear]

No, we only know that there was a chat transcript on his server in which one pseudonym ordered a hit from another pseudonym. Ulbricht claims that wasn't his chat. If it wasn't actually his chat, how could he possibly defend himself against such an allegation? There is no other evidence, no victim, nothing. The chat might have been placed there by his business partner, or by police. Sorry, but without additional evidence, this should not allow conviction based on "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt". This kind of verdict and "chat crime" means anybody can be thrown in jail for life simply by placing a file on their hard drive.

If there had been an actual murder, maybe the bar should be slightly lower, but when the crime only consists of a chat, the bar for conviction should be extremely high.

[William Pilgrim]

This is a travesty. Nobody died. He must go free soon.

[Brochettaward]

I would have liked to ask the families of the 'victims' in this cases how long most of those people had been on drugs, because odds are all of them started before silk road was even invented. They were still getting their drugs regardless of the site. The judge doesn't buy that he made it a safer process, then let her go try to buy heroin in a slum and see if she didn't find buying over the internet to be safer.

One way or the other, these people are going to get their fix. If people actually gave a damn about the people dying from OD's, they would divert the money spent on law enforcement's 'war' tactics and spend it on treatment centers. But people don't care - they just want to punish behavior they disapprove of, logic and real world results be damned.

He wasn't charged with murder, but here's 200 families who lost loved ones (supposedly) because of drugs they bought on Silk Road...

[Agile Cyborg]

"He wasn't charged with murder"

This is how they trapped him in a Wall Street supported cage for the remainder of his life..

Wall Street loves prisons and this genius got lucky he wasn't killed or so the FUCKING dumbasses called MIT or Columbia or is it Berkely prosecutors earn trophies.

Maybe it is FUCKING GODDAMN MOTHERFUCKING Princeton or that FUCKING place that dumbass math maniac BEAUTIFUL shit fucker lost my family and address fuck is found.

WHY are the supposed GREATEST law schools in modern America KILLING america?

Great minds can be like Hegel.... The greatest mind of modern government ever and greater than the intellect behind the constitution unless we can defeat modern Hegelian doctrines... if we can't
the future is bleak and America will fail happily to Hegelian Democrats and then Russia and China will gain impetus and the Middle East will arise to be the servants of the new Russia/China paradox...

Break China, you end Russian largess. Break the Middle East..
BUT NO AMERICAN politican will ever do this because the Saudis have poured Billions onto America.....

FUCK CHINA..... the head-cutters prevail

[Agile Cyborg]

Ok so my brain arm smashes the fuck here...

You want to know why this MOTHERFUCKING thread has a tiny readership? Because a pirate on the level of old Dark ages has been persecuted for his brutal offbeat mind space. This man is fabric of old America that FUCKING KILLED the FUCKING BRITISH because those fucks didn't give Americans the free smooth they required.

So this motherfucker creates an American constitution ship based on old world rejection of English tyranny and he gets life? FUCK you goddamn whore prosecutors in this case... if your flesh rotted off with Aids.3.5 I would FUCKING laugh and the light your fucking dying corpses with cheese....

HAHAHHHA FUCK you AMERICAN gov.... FUCKING dumbasses... I get fucked up and hammered and coked and lsd'd up but NEVER where you can entrap me you horrible Russian filth.

[Vae Victis]

...Yes.

[Eman]

the irony here is not quite as delicious/revolting as cigarette taxes in boston, but agreed

[gself44]

what Edwin replied I'm startled that a student can profit $9584 in a few weeks on the internet . original site............. http://www.MoneyKin.Com

[gself44]

what Edwin replied I'm startled that a student can profit $9584 in a few weeks on the internet . original site............. http://www.MoneyKin.Com

[mumohemevu]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.

This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.www.netjob80.com

[npy36805]

Nathaniel . although Stephanie `s rep0rt is super... I just bought a top of the range Mercedes sincee geting a check for $4416 this last four weeks and would you believe, ten/k last-month . no-doubt about it, this really is the best-job I've ever done . I actually started seven months/ago and almost straight away started making a nice over $79.. p/h..... ?????? http://www.netcash9.com

[Andre Leonard]

Judge Katherine Forrest in U.S. District Court for the southern district of New York made a difficult but good decision in this case.

Ross Ulbricht, did commit serious felony crimes under the guise of promoting individual freedoms to barter and sell in offense of current laws and he knew these were illegal. And he acted unlawfully for personal gain creating a conduit for the sale of illegal narcotics, while engaging in an ongoing criminal conspiracy. In so much, he was convicted of these crimes.

Ross's efforts to promote individual liberty and freedoms would have been better served by, helping to elect Libertarians into office that would change some of the 'laws' he detested and sought to circumvent.

Lawlessness to the extent Ross engaged in never changes the law. Only lawmakers can change the law. Anyone found to be operating in violation of 'current law' as we see here, will be visited with the full force and effect of the law.

As a Libertarian, I know we have much work to do.

[Hank Phillips]

So Nixon's Red Republican infiltrators are worked up about protecting the looters and their laws from "personal gain". What was the expression... Gemeinnutz vor Eigennutz?
This is the mentality that sought out the Gestapo to report a plutocratic Jewish girl hiding in the attic in clear violation of Christian National Socialist racial laws on August 4, 1944.

[Uilleam]

Fuck off slaver.

[Will Nonya]

The right to privacy in your affairs is overrated....

Life in prison for building a website seems totally fair.

[Win Bear]

Ross Ulbricht, did commit serious felony crimes under the guise of promoting individual freedoms to barter and sell in offense of current laws and he knew these were illegal.

I think that's far from clear. Yes, he created a platform that was well suited to conducting illegal activity. You're right that that's illegal under current law, but it is far from clear that it should be.

Lawlessness to the extent Ross engaged in never changes the law. Only lawmakers can change the law. Anyone found to be operating in violation of 'current law' as we see here, will be visited with the full force and effect of the law.

Sorry, but you're woefully wrong. For example, homosexuality became legal because the laws against it were widely ignored. Most advances in human liberty arguably resulted from people flaunting the laws, not from lawmakers. Personally, I don't have the stomach to break laws deliberately, but I'm glad others do.

Having said that, I think what Ulbricht did was both legally and technically stupid. But people are already working on new approaches: http://tinyurl.com/nudgl7g

Whether you or I or anybody else approves or disapproves is irrelevant. Anonymous, untraceable transactions will become a reality sooner or later; the only way to stop that would be to turn ourselves into a totalitarian society, and I don't think that's going to happen.

[Hank Phillips]

Maybe the GOP can elect Jeb "Holy War" Bush to deliver on his daddy's pro-life promises and mandate the death sentence for hemp kingpins. If they put him in a St. Augustine prison, all they have to do is call the cops and and tell them Brian is looking kinda depressed... mebbe suicidal...

[shermanchang5307]

They used parents of overdose victims against him?

If drugs were legalized and regulated wouldn't there be more protections from overdosing? Aren't overdoses an indictment of the War on Drugs more than anything?

Let's take a look at marijuana prohibition, for one thing. Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years, and what are the results?

*Today marijuana is America's #1 cash crop.

*Today American kids can buy marijuana easier than they can buy a beer.

*Marijuana is stronger and easier to get than ever before, albeit much more expensive than it should be. To smoke casually from the "black market", it will run you $100/month. This is much more expensive than it needs to be. More expensive than my cell phone ($20/month from Tmobile), car insurance ($25/month from InsurancePanda), netflix ($10/month), and gym ($15/month from PF) COMBINED!!! Would you rather put money into the hands of violent gangs and drug dealers? or into taxes for schools, hospitals, public infrastructure, etc.???

*Today marijuana is the #1 source of income for violent drug gangs and drug cartels who are richer and more dangerous than ever before.

This Ulbricht sentence sends one message - "Ok kids if you want your drugs now you'll have to go into a dark alley in the bad part of town."

[Hank Phillips]

Altruist People's States dictators whose secret ballot elections were stuffed with CIA and DEA dollars will now preach to their congregations that Both Parties in America, Land of the Free, say it is OK to fling kids to their death in torture dungeons in the name of Christian Teetotalitarianism. People forced at gunpoint to rubber-stamp communist and fascist party elections will again pay for superstitious bigotry enacted as law under the shadow of the Washington Monument. This is the example, I'm sure, Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson wanted These States to set for mystical fanatics and dry killers all over the world.

[Will Nonya]

This is completely absurd. Life for telling the government to fuck off. When they were asking for the harsher sentence they listed being a deterrent as a reason. That seems to be overly punitive and petty for a nonviolent offence.

They cant go after the people who sold the drugs so they make this schmuck out to be a kingpin and send him away for life.

[adolphowisner]

My best friend's mother-in-law makes $85 hour on the internet . She has been out of work for 5 months but last month her pay was $16453 just working on the internet for a few hours.
Visit this website ????? http://www.workweb40.com

[vixanoyez]

Google pay 97$ per hour my last pay check was $8500 working 1o hours a week online. My younger brother friend has been averaging 12k for months now and he works about 22 hours a week. I cant believe how easy it was once I tried it out.
This is wha- I do...... ?????? http://www.www.netjob80.com

[Eman]

this is not only absurd overkill, it's totally counterproductive if the actual goal is keeping people safe and healthy (which it clearly is not, i know). taking silk road down is the definition of letting perfect be the enemy of good enough (assuming in your perfect world nobody would be doing illegal drugs, and less people dying from them is just a minor victory). people have already learned from his mistakes though (centralized servers are not a great idea). law enforcement is always gonna be playing catch up

[Eman]

also if ulbricht is responsible for what other people do on his website shouldn't we hold phone companies accountable for drug deals made over the phone? or landlords accountable for people dealing drugs on their property?

[Culverado]

I bet the law firm wasn't using Planet Depos, the expertise they bring to a case is what got my well to do cousin(not naming names) off scott free.