Trump Is Considering Clemency for Silk Road Founder
thedailybeast.com
thedailybeast.com
Basically, the judge sentenced him for a crime that he wasn't convicted of (murder-for-hire): 'When she [the judge] gave him double life plus 40 years, she said the "murders significantly justified the life sentence."'
The most heartbreaking part of the story is the letter Ross read to the judge before sentencing:
"If you find my conviction warrants a sentence that allows for my eventual release, I will not lose my love for humanity during my years of imprisonment, . . .
I will do what I can to make up for not being there for the people I love, and to make the world a better place.
Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made... I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel ... a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker."
You don't have to be convicted of attempted murder for hire to have evidence that you were attempting to commit murder for hire in your drug case. The judge can surely use evidence presented in the case to decide severity.
> The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits increasing the maximum authorized sentence for an offense based on a fact not found by a jury.[1]
You're arguing the judge can essentially ignore the jury's findings on the case, which is the same as not having a jury.
And in this case, the prosecution didn't even bring an indictment for that particular crime. Allowing a judge to both decide which crimes were committed and who is guilty of committing them is not a great idea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_constitutional_s...
Was the detail of Albricht trying to hire someone to murder someone else not brought up in the case at all?
You don't have to be charged with attempted murder for that evidence to come up in your drug dealer trial.
I haven't followed the case, and I probably have some details wrong, but it sounds like the prosecution intentionally split the murder charge into a separate trial to be run later because the entrapment defense would have cast doubt on the other charges. (To be clear, my limited understanding leads me to think that Ross was probably guilty of the 4 charges under which he was convicted.) They likely probably never intended to prosecute the murder-for-trial charges except as a backup if they lost the primary trial. The entrapment defense just looks way too easy.
But that's not what he was charged with and that's not what he was convicted of, so he shouldn't be serving time for it. If you want him on those charges charge him with those crimes.
In any case, I agree it seems fundamentally against the rule of law to punish people for crimes they haven't been convicted of.
However, the reason charges were dropped on those was because nobody was actually killed, the people he paid to have killed didn't actually exist, and the prosecutors determined that prosecuting him for crimes where no victims ever even existed would hurt their chances with a jury on the other charges.
Of course, the scammer and the real bad dudes were the same guy, and he managed to turn an extortion into a murder for hire of himself and some fictional associates, and made off with just under a million dollars at the time, not counting what he made scamming customers and also not counting future price increase.
DPR, the criminal mastermind that he was, fell for it, never put it together, and paid. He legitimately thought all these names were different people and actually existed. I don't believe he even found out he got scammed until he was in jail facing charges and the scammer was caught for some other unrelated crimes.
https://www.audible.com/pd/American-Kingpin-Audiobook/B06Y1R...
The person blackmailing him was the person who he contracted to do the deed, and the name he had for the blackmailer was not a real person, 3 of the people never even were named in any way and did not exist either.
He did think he had killed a total (that we know of) of 6 people, which to me would be enough for soliciting murder if I were on a jury. But a defense would be very strong in a case like that, and a prosecutor unlikely to convince 12 jurors.
Personally, I'd prefer his sentence be fully commuted, and then prosecutors actually charge him with at least some of the murders-for-hire, a jury convicts him, and a judge re-sentences him to life in prison for those offenses.
That would be proper justice, I think. I think they could likely win the case despite the crooked cop (who was only involved in one of the five alleged attempted murders-for-hire). In my view, he shares the exact narcissistic and psychopathic mentality of any Escobar or Guzman: "if you come in my way, you forfeit your life".
We all get to act like it's happening, and the news publication gets clicks for its unverified "wouldn't it be crazy if we actually had this scoop?" fantasy.
I remember years of "Twitter considering edit button" which finally seemed to quiet down... until https://twitter.com/twitter/status/1278763679421431809 provoked a whole new rumor cycle.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Why should they be opposed?
The obvious reason is they get to choose what information, when, and how its disclosed. For example, hack both sides, release one at a damaging time and blackmail the other into compliance.
Indiscriminate releasing of information can put people in immediate danger (like embedded spies).
You can also drop misinformation into a dump of legitimate information. Or a similar technique where you exaggerate true information because admitting to the truth is embarrassing; like claiming 1,000 civilians were killed when the actual number is closer to 600.
I cannot resist. So the aforementioned shadowy Russians might be leaking information to themselves via the American press?
What dastardly yet disorganised fiends.
They could literally just publish the info on the web. If it is largely true, people will believe it. The Russians aren't behind Wikileaks.
Do you have anything concrete to back that up? Wikileaks has been foolhardedly devoted to exposing uncomfortable truths about institutions across the political spectrum. Some people are maybe upset that this probably lead to Trump's election.
> who convinced people to ignore a woman’s story of sexual assault
The preliminary investigation into that case has been dropped. As far as I'm aware, he made no effort to convince people to ignore the story, but he did strongly deny the allegations. This says nothing either way of his innocence or criminality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...
Edit:
RE: Anyone questioning Assange's ties to Russia, there's the following article. Assange was purportedly contacted about a pardon in 2017 in exchange for denying Russian involvement into leaking Clinton's emails (which Julian declined)
> Lawyers representing the United States at Julian Assange’s extradition trial in Britain have accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon by a congressman on the condition that he would help cover up Russia’s involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee.
Coverage about that here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-admits-that-putins-favorite...
No evidence is needed, as it's not a concrete claim. In modern US political parlance, the term "Russian asset" is a spooky-sounding but otherwise meaningless term. It's a cheap-but-effective rhetorical trick for discrediting someone.
I agree though with the implication that he isn't an American patriot. Clearly he's Australian/Swedish
The Swedish investigation had no intention of uncovering the truth about this this woman's possible assault. They endlessly refused any kind of telephonic interview with Assange, even though it is normal practice in Sweden. They were not passionately pursuing justice for a wronged woman - they were idly forcing a man into confinement to help their American allies. This is exactly the finding of the UN special investigator for torture.
Edited due to poor wording
Edit: clarifications in parenthesis.
What do you mean by transaction?
Edit because downvotes usually mean people didn't understand what I meant it in this case probably thought I was getting at something.
What link / transaction do you think happened between trump and Assange?
That depends on who you ask. For some reason his supporters feel that way, and his detractors would beg to differ.
Being that we are now in an era of "fake news", its up to the willingness of the individual to entertain the evidence that's been presented.
Bullshit. I've detracted Trump since I learned of his existence in the mid-80s. I would never vote for him for any office. I would not change the channel to hear him say something. He is a worse human than he is a President, and that's a very low bar indeed.
Still, the idea that he and any Russians worked together on his election has been extensively investigated, and no evidence to that effect has ever been made public. Confused people will cite the "Mueller" report, but those documents also contain no evidence to that effect. If there were something there, we would have seen it by now.
President can do thousands of these at a time, there is no limit.
I guess it expired in 2015, and a version that somewhat hamstrung the NSA replaced it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act#:~:text=After%20re....
And then section 215 expired this year, but it looks like it was more the House of Reps, than Trump.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/04/yes-section-215-expire...
There's just been so much going on this year that stuff gets buried.
I'm not willing to give Trump too much credit on this front, since he also normalized use of the military against peaceful domestic protestors for the purpose of cheap PR stunts.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-protests-apol...
In general, presidents usually pardon someone who's already serving a sentence under a federal law. Snowden and Assange are not. Reality Winner is, and so was Chelsea Manning (pardoned by Obama).
Of course, it's Trump we're talking about, so I don't think any sort of prior legal precedents really matters.
Now though, it would be a big fuck-you to the establishment figures who fought him internally from day 1, which would suit his image. It could also go some way towards improving his figure in the history books, something most presidents tend to care about once they stop being concerned with everyday political streetfights. It has to be seen if he’s really at that stage though - were he younger, I wouldn’t put past him to challenge again in 4 years.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/02/the-hitman-scam-...
Ulbricht isn’t a good person, he had a very bad lawyer which probably cost him several decades of imprisonment but just because he was a “hacker” who did his crimes with new technology doesn’t somehow make him better than any of the other people in prison for the same crimes. Seriously, sit down and read the journals they admitted into evidence, the guy is a sociopath focused on getting rich through selling drugs he knew were killing people.
> being blackmailed with user info. talking with large distributor (hell's angels)
> got word that blackmailer was excuted, created file upload script, started to fix problem with bond refunds over 3 months old
> reconfigured nginx to not time out. almost all errors have disappeared.
> sent payment to angels for hit on tony76 and his 3 associates, began setting up hecho as standby, very high load (300/16), took site offline and refactored main and category pages to be more efficient
https://www.wired.com/2015/01/heres-secret-silk-road-journal...
Edit: To be clear, because I've already got what feel like knee jerk downvotes, I honestly don't understand the hitman charges in the case and would like if someone has any more info. I mean, the chat logs looked pretty damning, but then all of those charges seem to have been thrown out, so I'd like to understand the reason for that. Were the chat logs forged in some way? Was it a technicality? Did the Feds just not care because they had enough in the drug charges?
[1] https://news.bitcoin.com/ross-ulbricht-murder-for-hire-indic...
Edit: To quote Wikipedia (more precise than my statement):
Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder-for-hire,[28][36] but evidence was introduced at trial supporting the allegations.[28][37] The evidence that Ulbricht had commissioned murders was considered by the judge in sentencing Ulbricht to life, and was a factor in the Second Circuit's decision to affirm the life sentence.[37] A separate indictment against Ulbricht in federal court in Maryland on a single murder-for-hire charge, alleging that he contracted to kill one of his employees (a former Silk Road moderator),[38] was dismissed with prejudice by prosecutors in July 2018, after his New York conviction and sentence became final.[39][40]
You may think this indirection is a minor technical difference, but I see a totally different standard of evidence. This isn't "beyond a reasonable doubt". If the prosecutors thought they could sustain a murder-for-hire charge, I'm sure they would have prosecuted it. It's a more serious crime! So I'm skeptical.
Taking a different tack here - even if he was in fact guilty of attempted murder-for-hire, what's a reasonable punishment for that? Is 7 years in prison long enough?
I think its fair to spend >7 years on muder for hire (if that was the charge). The other charges not so much, but most drug charges in usa seem excessive to me, so that's probably par for the course.
However, to your second point: no, 7 years is not enough for attempted murder. Failing to commit a crime (because your hitmen were actually the police) is as morally reprehensible as succeeding. You performed the actions, formed intent, it’s just the victim got lucky. Your sentence shouldn’t be reduced because of their luck.
He was not prosecuted and sentenced for that so life time in prison seems unjust.
But such sentence would be reasonable for a serious attempted murder (like for succesfull murder). I see no reason to significantly lower penalty just because someone was incompetent or stopped. 7 years seems clearly too low for that.
Which activity among [money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics] requires murder-for-hire? Is there a fifth charge for which he was convicted that I've missed?
Is there some non-intuitive legal definition of conspiracy to traffic narcotics, where conspiracy to traffic requires conspiracy to distribute plus conspiracy to commit murder, or something like that?
Also, is there any legal or strategic reason to drop the charge for the predicate crime? It might make sense as a legal strategy to reduce attention on a shaky part of the case, but it seems that the defense would draw plenty of attention to a shaky key pillar of the case anyway.
His only convictions were money laundering, computer hacking, and conspiracy to traffic narcotics.
I'm sure the court documents put a much finer point on it than a Wikipedia paragraph, but that's too much effort right now at 11:40pm. Just looking for some light HN procrastination.
they used things he wasn't on trial for, to sway the jury and influence his sentencing.
they also withheld that the murder-for-hire theatre was done by corrupt federal agents who were already captured and on trial for doing that amongst other things with silk road.
it also worked.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-950/34432/201802...
And, unfortunately for Ulbrecht, the crimes he was convicted of carried high maximum sentences. I think the minimum he was facing was 20 years. The whole thing is ridiculous.
Edit, for clarity: the ridiculous sentencing of Ulbrecht is ridiculous, not a judge allowing so many of Nassar’s victims to speak at his sentencing. When I re-read my comment I realized it could be construed that way...
> A district court may consider as part of its sentencing determination uncharged conduct proven by a preponderance of the evidence as long as that conduct does not increase either the statutory minimum or maximum available punishment. > ... > Here, the six drug-related deaths (and more importantly, Ulbricht's attempted murders for hire) were uncharged facts that did not increase either the statutory twenty-year minimum or the maximum life sentence applicable to the crimes of which he was found guilty, beyond a reasonable doubt, by the jury. [1]
And later:
> Thus, even without considering that enhancement, the drug convictions yielded an offense level of 48, which is higher than the maximum offense level recognized by the Guidelines, for which a sentence of life imprisonment is recommended even for someone who, like Ulbricht, has no prior criminal convictions. > ... > Accordingly, while a life sentence for selling drugs alone would give pause, we would be hard put to find such a sentence beyond the bounds of reason for drug crimes of this magnitude.[67] But the facts of this case involve much more than simply facilitating the sale of narcotics. [2]
To summarize, Apprendi v. New Jersey says that facts not found by a jury cannot be used to raise sentence maximums. However, sentencing guidelines for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of give a maximum life sentence. Therefore, using uncharged facts to inform sentencing is permissible because it doesn't actually increase the maximum possible sentence. Had evidence to those things not been presented at trial, it's possible (probable?) that his sentence would have been shorter.
Personally, this seems problematic as while it doesn't technically increase the sentencing maximum, it allows the judge to bypass the jury to determine guilt on certain facts.
[1] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=737983501658365...
[2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=737983501658365...
> To summarize, Apprendi v. New Jersey says that facts not found by a jury cannot be used to raise sentence maximums.
Correct.
> However, sentencing guidelines for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of give a maximum life sentence. Therefore, using uncharged facts to inform sentencing is permissible because it doesn't actually increase the maximum possible sentence.
Two different things are in play here that seem to have been somewhat conflated:
Because the statutory punishment for the crimes Ulbricht was convicted of by the jury has a maximum life sentence, uncharged conduct proven by a preponderance of the evidence can be used to set sentencing within that maximum without violating the right to trial by jury, so the court did not act impermissibly by considering the uncharged conduct and setting life imprisonment having considered it.
Because the sentencing guidelines range for the offenses he was convicted of by the jury, without the uncharged conduct considered, also supported an offense level for which a life sentence is recommended for an offender with no prior convictions, the sentence of life imprisonment would have been reasonable for the drug crimes alone, even had the court not considered the uncharged murder for hire actions. That is, a life sentence would have been called for by the guidelines for the drug offenses alone.
One of these discussions goes something like this:
Crook: Sorry dread pirate, I don't want to extort you but a big bad nasty dealer is demanding money from me.
DPR: Put him on, let me see if I can work it out.
Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: This big bad dealer.
DPR: Okay why don't I pay you what the 'other guy' was demanding, and you make him go away forever.
Crook-wearing-nose-and-glasses: Can do.
I can't be the only person that read that as a subtext of "I know I'm just talking to you, but I want to make it clear that you're not going to get to try this stunt multiple times"-- arguably an assault. But I would just assume that getting death threats is just a cost of doing business as an extortionist.
Of course, there is no allegation that anyone actually died at all.
Keep in mind that much of this evidence was collected by a couple of phenomenally corrupt officers who compromised the silkroad systems and robbed it blind (some of whom have now been convicted but it appears there may have been an additional one who wasn't caught). Ulbrecht's defence was denied access to large amounts of potentially exculpatory evidence because the prosecution completely concealed the corrupt officers from the case.
It is absolutely a miscarriage of justice to hold the murder for hire allegations against him when the prosecution dare not have charged any of it because doing so would have forced them to expose that the chain of custody of their evidence went through extremely corrupt LE who had a tens of millions of dollar incentive to keep all the attention on someone else while they lined their pockets.
But I'm just some internet hothead.
Here is what the National Lawyers Guild said:
> “The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial.”
Because of this I think we can never know the truth, but it a basic bedrock principle of our legal system that when the prosecution is corrupt and engages in misconduct such that we can't be sure of the truth, we'd rather let a guilty person walk than wrongfully convict or reward unethical and inequitable conduct by the state.
COUNT ONE: Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy
_Overt Acts_
(10) (b) On or about March 29, 2013, ROSS WILLIAM ULBRICHT, a/k/a/ "Dread Pirate Roberts," a/k/a "DPR," a/k/a "Sild Road," the defendant, in connection with operating the Silk Road website, solicited a Silk Road user to execute a murder-for-hire of another Silk Road user, who was threatening to release the identities of thousands of users of the site.
Media coverage from back then: https://www.dailydot.com/crime/silk-road-murder-charges-ross...
> To date, there have been precisely zero murder charges filed. Instead, the indictment has been changed without explanation, the formal charges omitted, and the broader accusations buried within a lesser drug trafficking charge.
> Of the six murder indictments trumpeted by the U.S. government in the days following Ulbricht’s Oct. 2013 arrest, five have fallen off the table and the sixth sits untouched in a separate indictment (legalese for an unproven allegation) that was purposefully left out of the upcoming trial.
Of course, we know now why they didn't charge-- those charges were impossibly tainted by the involvement of the corrupt officers. But the trial was no less prejudiced just because they skipped charging on the murder-for-hire parts: those corrupt officers had administrative control over the systems, they fabricated evidence to conceal their heist, and so on.
Had the compromise of the investigation not been fatal to the prosecutions case they simply wouldn't have risked concealing it from the defence.
Whatever corruption you say taints the charge, it taints the entire Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy charge as well! The murder-for-hire scheme is a predicate!
It was not a charge and no one was required to believe an ounce of it to convict him. It literally wasn't charged, nor was he convicted of it.
If he was charged it would have been possible for the jury to find him innocent of it, but that was literally impossible here. It was something the trial literally could not have falsified because it was no something it gave a verdict to. All that would be been possible is that the jury could have found him innocent of the broader conspiracy to distribute narcotics-- a charge that was supported by many different pieces of evidence.
Consider the jury instructions: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.422823... (sadly this is a readline and not the final version but I don't see the final version).
> In order to aid or abet another to commit a crime, it is necessary that the Government prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant knowingly and intentionally associated himself in some way with the crime, and that he knowingly and intentionally sought, by some act, to help make the crime succeed.
To further emphasize this, the appellate court wrote (emphasis mine):
> Here, the six drug-related deaths (and more importantly, Ulbricht's attempted murders for hire) were uncharged facts
But I do also agree with you on the rest:
I am of the opinion that almost the entire investigation was tainted, unfortunately-- because the corrupt officers had administrative access to the systems and tampered with the evidence. And not only did this potentially spoil almost all of their material evidence, but the defence was prejudicially denied knowledge of this spoliation.
[Aside, I want to thank you for your replies, it's been years since I looked at any of this. Your responses made mine more accurate in context.]
https://reason.com/2018/07/25/ross-ulbrichts-murder-for-hire...
Why were all the actual murder for hire charges dropped and instead included in a side notes of a conspiracy sentencing? Seems obvious to me that it was because there is no way they would get a conviction.
> The sentence was based on judicial findings related to allegations of serious crimes that not only were never found by a jury but were not even among the charges leveled at trial. During closing argument, the U.S. attorney explicitly advised the jury: “[T]o be clear, the defendant has not been charged for these attempted murders here. You’re not required to make any findings about them. And the government does not contend that those murders actually occurred.”
[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-950/34432/20180...
I think you're much more than that :-)
I mean, people who have actually murdered other people are usually at least given a chance at parole.
It essentially inserts an insane amount of arbitrariness and personal favouritism into what is supposed to be an impartial legal process. Given how often it has been abused for political purposes in the US it seems particularly problematic.
Despite the high profile political cases, the majority of presidential pardons are given to people who have sat in jail for a long time on crimes that are not at the highest level of turpitude such as murder/rape/kidnapping.
Historically it has not been quite as arbitrary or controversial as one might think.
I agree with you, yet Pickard was released this last summer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
The vast majority of pardon pleas go unnoticed and yes, media campaigns try to make it seem like these things are getting the attention they might deserve... yet even if trump doesnt do it, the legalization of pot, decrim in oregon/cali, mdma/ketamine studies, etc are all pointing towards a (bare minimum) decriminalized future, one in which criminals like ross will begin to look less like criminals.
Also the fact that news articles are even willing to suggest that trump is considering it is fascinating; I have yet to see news articles suggesting something similar of say, nixon. Do you think ross wont be a free man in 20 years?
for Bribery? Because he was getting set to conduct a whole lot of bribery.
This is a good explanation - https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-pardons.html
I'd put money on Assange having a very slim shot at a pardon and Snowden having zero shot (Trump ultimately leans toward being a big government, big national security type).
Snowden, Assange, Ulbricht, Manning, Kim Dotcom - all under the Obama / Biden Administration, and now Biden is about to be President (the guy that took direct orders from Hollywood & Co. to go after Kim Dotcom). I'd also bet on another wave of martyrs at the hands of the Biden Admin.
I'd say he has very little ideology that he's committed to other than his own personal gain. He's likely to pardon anyone who might have shown him fealty in the past or who is willing to engage in quid-pro-quo.
Or if you want to be more charitable, whatever opinion is most useful for the immediate moment. But I think that's an overestimation, lots of them aren't that coherent.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/ag-barr-resignation-...
What am I looking for exactly?
It chose to say that pardoning Ross would "own the libs" because "liberal judges from disaster run sanctuary cities" colluded with "corrupt deep state agents" to make a mockery of our justice system.
Have new messaging for the new administration, better remember to turn this particular bot off.