11 ms·

i really wish we could get this guy out of prison. he does not deserve to be there for longer than 10 years.

by mysore 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mullen 4y ago
He really did try to have someone killed. Ulbricht is exactly the kind of person who should be in prison.
- ALittleLight 4y ago
  If my memory serves the government never brought that as a charge at trial. In part, I think, because they wanted to not discuss that the agent Ross tried to buy the hit(s) from wound up stealing money from the Silk Road.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Your memory does not serve you right, and the murder-for-hire scheme was in fact part of the charges he was tried for.
    - ALittleLight 4y ago
      Per Wikipedia - "Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder for hire". Wikipedia does say that there was evidence that was shown at trial about the murder for hire thing and that it did weigh against him in sentencing - which seems odd to me that crimes you haven't been charged with or convicted of could impact your sentence. Wikipedia also says "Ulbricht was separately indicted 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). Prosecutors moved to drop this indictment after his New York conviction and sentence became final" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Arrest
      - tptacek 4y ago
        That's right, he was charged with a "Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy", with 4 overt acts, a, b, c, and d, and b and c were the murder-for-hire schemes. The overt acts of a conspiracy charge are the guts of the charge itself, and the prosecution has to prove them at trial. Try this: Google [federal narcotics conspiracy "murder for hire"] (it's not a rare combination of factors!), pull up some DOJ press releases (I found several on the first search results page), and then look them up in PACER. I'm looking at Roger Key (a.k.a. "Luchie")'s 2015 indictment right now, and it's similar. This isn't some weird finagling the prosecutors did with Ulbricht; it's just how you get charged for this kind of conduct. This notion that prosecutors somehow gave up on the murder-for-hire charge is Internet folklore. It's just not real. What complicated the charge isn't some bungling spy story about the agents involved, but the fact that the murder was a set-up and he didn't actually have anyone killed. But the prosecution established that Ulbricht tried to, and that's also the simplest and most reasonable conclusion to reach given the facts. I've never read an exculpatory explanation of Ulbricht's payment to arrange murders that made any sense at all.
        ALittleLight 4y ago
        I'm having a hard time squaring your comment with the wikipedia article that you seem to agree with. Ulbricht wasn't convicted on murder for hire charges and the time he was charged on a murder for hire thing that charge was dropped. You seem to be saying that the reason he wasn't charged/convicted is because nobody was actually murdered. That seems hard for me to believe because the state would have known nobody was actually murdered when they were writing the indictment (which alleges the murder for hire plot) or when they were bringing the original charges. It's also true that agents involved in the plot, the agent Ulbricht thought he was buying the hit from specifically, were arrested and convicted for stealing from the silk road. I think it's way more plausible that the government decided not to go in to the extent of the corruption of their officers at trial, because it would provide a good reason to think about what other government dishonesty their might be, rather than the government deciding that they can't charge attempted murder for hire because nobody died. https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/ https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-...
- sillysaurusx 4y ago
  Did he? I would appreciate being reminded as to the facts of that. I’ve always felt skeptical of that claim, but I haven’t spent the time to research it. It just felt like that would be the exact thing an organization would pin on him if they wanted to destroy his life. It’s entirely possible he did, but I remind you that in an era where Epstein probably didn’t kill himself, it’s really hard to just take things at face value. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 is a pretty good overview.
  - tveita 4y ago
    The chat logs they captured from his servers[1] are straight forward and damning, and corroborated by the diary they retrieved from his laptop. There is no serious doubt that he solicited multiple hits, both from an undercover FBI agent and from other people, possibly scammers. It is up to you what moral weights you want to assign to US drug policies, that the FBI agent was corrupt [2], or that apparently no one actually got killed, but it's silly that people are still disputing the plain fact that Ross Ulbricht tried to have people murdered. [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-assassinations/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-bos... > Dread Pirate Roberts 3/29/2013 22:55: Hi again R&W, I hate to come to you with a problem when we are just starting to get to know one another, but Blake (FriendlyChemist) is causing me problems. Are you still looking for him or now that you've found Xin have you given up? I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him? Necessities like this do happen from time to time for a person in my position. I have others I can turn to, but it is always good to have options and you are close to the case right now. Hopefully this is something you are open to and can be another aspect of our business relationship. Regards, DPR > Dread Pirate Roberts 3/31/2013 8:59: Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do? I would like this done asap as he is talking about releasing the info on Monday [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/8q845p/dea-agent-who-faked-a-murder-and-took-bitcoins-from-silk-road-explains-himself https://www.vice.com/en/article/8q845p/dea-agent-who-faked-a...
- homonculus1 4y ago
  I have a bridge to sell you, best view in the Bay Area.
  - mullen 4y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 You might want to give me a really good price.
- splintercell 4y ago
  How many years do you think someone should get for a murder-for-hire scheme?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
AndyNemmity 4y ago
The thing is, prison has a lot of variances. A life sentence in prison has him in the darkest prison world. Martin Shkreli was in the easiest parts of prison for example. Ross is in the lifer prison with the hardest criminals. It's said he's struggling a lot because you have to join the racist white groups in lifer prison, and his morals don't allow that. But you have to, or you have no protection, and may get killed. The US prison system is a far scarier place than anyone thinks about. You essentially have to stay blind to what happens inside, or you couldn't with good conscious send anyone there.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  I can understand why he was sentenced to prison but I've never really understood why Ulbrict was put in a high security prison. He's basically harmless without a keyboard.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    To make an example... deterrence.
  - 1123581321 4y ago
    To frighten potential creators of other marketplaces.
  - throwaway654329 4y ago
    To inflict cruel and/or unusual punishment and as a deterrent to others. The judge only acknowledged the latter half of my first sentence and the former is the quiet part judges can’t say out loud lest the damned have a toehold for an appeal.
    - emmelaich 4y ago
      > "my" ? What was the nature of your case? Or are you saying you're DPR?
      - 4y ago
lbotos 4y ago
On one hand, that makes sense if we think of him as just the person who built the computer platform, but on the other this is the logic the courts used to justify his sentence: "Using the online moniker “Dread Pirate Roberts,” or “DPR,” ULBRICHT controlled and oversaw every aspect of Silk Road, and managed a staff of paid, online administrators and computer programmers who assisted with the day-to-day operation of the site. Through his ownership and operation of Silk Road, ULBRICHT reaped commissions worth more than $13 million generated from the illicit sales conducted through the site. ULBRICHT also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its users, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out." Should a drug kingpin who built a global network that facilitated the transfer of illegal substances who was willing to kill people to protect that enterprise only get 10 years? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for drugs to be decriminalized in the US, but where the line is crossed for me is that this person was willing to KILL others in service of making money.
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  > soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site Ulbricht was never charged with this, never-mind convicted.
- notch656a 4y ago
  The US criminal justice system is supposed to presume someone is innocent until proven guilty. He was never convicted of the murder-for-hire but yet it was taken into account for his sentencing. That is not right and short-circuits due process.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    Sentencing has always had unprovable stuff considered. Your friends and family will come in to tell what a wonderful person you are, none of it verifiable and often entirely bullshit.
    - notch656a 4y ago
Syonyk 4y ago
If he'd "just" run a marketplace for illegal everythings, you might be able to make an argument. When it crosses into "casually ordering multiple murders he believed happened," then, no, I'm sorry, you're not just running a marketplace. You deserve to be behind bars for a long, long time. The only reason that nobody actually died from that was because he was surrounded by scammers and informants, and didn't realize this. But incompetence is no defense against ordering multiple murders. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/inside-silk-road-staged-assassinations https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/inside-silk-road-staged-... has a lot of details on the absurdities surrounding it, but DPR genuinely did believe he'd ordered people killed.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
nathanvanfleet 4y ago
We all remember he was trying to get a handful of people assassinated right?
arcticbull 4y ago
He literally tried to murder a few separate people.
wil421 4y ago
Trying to get a hit on someone is more than 10 years alone and he ran an online drug market.
greenthrow 4y ago
Either you don't know the extent of what he did and what he enabled or you and I do not share any kind of sense of justice.
peanut_worm 4y ago
Are you sure? I believe he tried to have two people assassinated.
pennaMan 4y ago
His actual crime is subjucating the totality of the state beyond what the state thought was possible.
iudqnolq 4y ago
Yes, but he's not unique. In fact, he's much less sympathetic that most of the people in there with him. I find it quite sad that people on this site will say things like "it was unjust for allegations not proved at trial to be used against him at sentencing" and yet always believe that this same logic shouldn't apply to the "average bad person". The logical extension of the arguments below you is at a minimum support for someone like Chesa Boudin. Probably it's far further than what Boudin's (at least publicly) expressed. (Quotes not direct. Combinations of things I've heard many different people say differently)

i really wish we could get this guy out of prison. he does not deserve to be there for longer than 10 years.

by mysore 4y ago

i really wish we could get this guy out of prison. he does not deserve to be there for longer than 10 years.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mullen 4y ago

He really did try to have someone killed. Ulbricht is exactly the kind of person who should be in prison.

ALittleLight 4y ago
If my memory serves the government never brought that as a charge at trial. In part, I think, because they wanted to not discuss that the agent Ross tried to buy the hit(s) from wound up stealing money from the Silk Road.
- tptacek 4y ago
  Your memory does not serve you right, and the murder-for-hire scheme was in fact part of the charges he was tried for.
  - ALittleLight 4y ago
    Per Wikipedia - "Ulbricht was not charged in his trial in New York federal court with any murder for hire". Wikipedia does say that there was evidence that was shown at trial about the murder for hire thing and that it did weigh against him in sentencing - which seems odd to me that crimes you haven't been charged with or convicted of could impact your sentence. Wikipedia also says "Ulbricht was separately indicted 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). Prosecutors moved to drop this indictment after his New York conviction and sentence became final" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Arrest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Arrest
    - tptacek 4y ago
      That's right, he was charged with a "Narcotics Trafficking Conspiracy", with 4 overt acts, a, b, c, and d, and b and c were the murder-for-hire schemes. The overt acts of a conspiracy charge are the guts of the charge itself, and the prosecution has to prove them at trial. Try this: Google [federal narcotics conspiracy "murder for hire"] (it's not a rare combination of factors!), pull up some DOJ press releases (I found several on the first search results page), and then look them up in PACER. I'm looking at Roger Key (a.k.a. "Luchie")'s 2015 indictment right now, and it's similar. This isn't some weird finagling the prosecutors did with Ulbricht; it's just how you get charged for this kind of conduct. This notion that prosecutors somehow gave up on the murder-for-hire charge is Internet folklore. It's just not real. What complicated the charge isn't some bungling spy story about the agents involved, but the fact that the murder was a set-up and he didn't actually have anyone killed. But the prosecution established that Ulbricht tried to, and that's also the simplest and most reasonable conclusion to reach given the facts. I've never read an exculpatory explanation of Ulbricht's payment to arrange murders that made any sense at all.
      - ALittleLight 4y ago
        I'm having a hard time squaring your comment with the wikipedia article that you seem to agree with. Ulbricht wasn't convicted on murder for hire charges and the time he was charged on a murder for hire thing that charge was dropped. You seem to be saying that the reason he wasn't charged/convicted is because nobody was actually murdered. That seems hard for me to believe because the state would have known nobody was actually murdered when they were writing the indictment (which alleges the murder for hire plot) or when they were bringing the original charges. It's also true that agents involved in the plot, the agent Ulbricht thought he was buying the hit from specifically, were arrested and convicted for stealing from the silk road. I think it's way more plausible that the government decided not to go in to the extent of the corruption of their officers at trial, because it would provide a good reason to think about what other government dishonesty their might be, rather than the government deciding that they can't charge attempted murder for hire because nobody died. https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-mole-silk-road/ https://www.wired.com/2015/03/dea-agent-charged-acting-paid-...
sillysaurusx 4y ago
Did he? I would appreciate being reminded as to the facts of that. I’ve always felt skeptical of that claim, but I haven’t spent the time to research it. It just felt like that would be the exact thing an organization would pin on him if they wanted to destroy his life. It’s entirely possible he did, but I remind you that in an era where Epstein probably didn’t kill himself, it’s really hard to just take things at face value. EDIT: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 is a pretty good overview.
- tveita 4y ago
  The chat logs they captured from his servers[1] are straight forward and damning, and corroborated by the diary they retrieved from his laptop. There is no serious doubt that he solicited multiple hits, both from an undercover FBI agent and from other people, possibly scammers. It is up to you what moral weights you want to assign to US drug policies, that the FBI agent was corrupt [2], or that apparently no one actually got killed, but it's silly that people are still disputing the plain fact that Ross Ulbricht tried to have people murdered. [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-boss-ordering-5-assassinations/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/read-transcript-silk-roads-bos... > Dread Pirate Roberts 3/29/2013 22:55: Hi again R&W, I hate to come to you with a problem when we are just starting to get to know one another, but Blake (FriendlyChemist) is causing me problems. Are you still looking for him or now that you've found Xin have you given up? I would like to put a bounty on his head if it's not too much trouble for you. What would be an adequate amount to motivate you to find him? Necessities like this do happen from time to time for a person in my position. I have others I can turn to, but it is always good to have options and you are close to the case right now. Hopefully this is something you are open to and can be another aspect of our business relationship. Regards, DPR > Dread Pirate Roberts 3/31/2013 8:59: Don't want to be a pain here, but the price seems high. Not long ago, I had a clean hit done for $80k. Are the prices you quoted the best you can do? I would like this done asap as he is talking about releasing the info on Monday [2] https://www.vice.com/en/article/8q845p/dea-agent-who-faked-a-murder-and-took-bitcoins-from-silk-road-explains-himself https://www.vice.com/en/article/8q845p/dea-agent-who-faked-a...
homonculus1 4y ago
I have a bridge to sell you, best view in the Bay Area.
- mullen 4y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32057717 You might want to give me a really good price.
splintercell 4y ago
How many years do you think someone should get for a murder-for-hire scheme?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

AndyNemmity 4y ago

The thing is, prison has a lot of variances. A life sentence in prison has him in the darkest prison world. Martin Shkreli was in the easiest parts of prison for example. Ross is in the lifer prison with the hardest criminals. It's said he's struggling a lot because you have to join the racist white groups in lifer prison, and his morals don't allow that. But you have to, or you have no protection, and may get killed. The US prison system is a far scarier place than anyone thinks about. You essentially have to stay blind to what happens inside, or you couldn't with good conscious send anyone there.

Hamuko 4y ago
I can understand why he was sentenced to prison but I've never really understood why Ulbrict was put in a high security prison. He's basically harmless without a keyboard.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  To make an example... deterrence.
- 1123581321 4y ago
  To frighten potential creators of other marketplaces.
- throwaway654329 4y ago
  To inflict cruel and/or unusual punishment and as a deterrent to others. The judge only acknowledged the latter half of my first sentence and the former is the quiet part judges can’t say out loud lest the damned have a toehold for an appeal.
  - emmelaich 4y ago
    > "my" ? What was the nature of your case? Or are you saying you're DPR?
    - 4y ago

lbotos 4y ago

On one hand, that makes sense if we think of him as just the person who built the computer platform, but on the other this is the logic the courts used to justify his sentence: "Using the online moniker “Dread Pirate Roberts,” or “DPR,” ULBRICHT controlled and oversaw every aspect of Silk Road, and managed a staff of paid, online administrators and computer programmers who assisted with the day-to-day operation of the site. Through his ownership and operation of Silk Road, ULBRICHT reaped commissions worth more than $13 million generated from the illicit sales conducted through the site. ULBRICHT also demonstrated a willingness to use violence to protect his criminal enterprise and the anonymity of its users, soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site, although there is no evidence that these murders were actually carried out." Should a drug kingpin who built a global network that facilitated the transfer of illegal substances who was willing to kill people to protect that enterprise only get 10 years? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for drugs to be decriminalized in the US, but where the line is crossed for me is that this person was willing to KILL others in service of making money.

alasdair_ 4y ago
> soliciting six murders-for-hire in connection with operating the site Ulbricht was never charged with this, never-mind convicted.
notch656a 4y ago
The US criminal justice system is supposed to presume someone is innocent until proven guilty. He was never convicted of the murder-for-hire but yet it was taken into account for his sentencing. That is not right and short-circuits due process.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  Sentencing has always had unprovable stuff considered. Your friends and family will come in to tell what a wonderful person you are, none of it verifiable and often entirely bullshit.
  - notch656a 4y ago

Syonyk 4y ago

If he'd "just" run a marketplace for illegal everythings, you might be able to make an argument. When it crosses into "casually ordering multiple murders he believed happened," then, no, I'm sorry, you're not just running a marketplace. You deserve to be behind bars for a long, long time. The only reason that nobody actually died from that was because he was surrounded by scammers and informants, and didn't realize this. But incompetence is no defense against ordering multiple murders. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/inside-silk-road-staged-assassinations https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/inside-silk-road-staged-... has a lot of details on the absurdities surrounding it, but DPR genuinely did believe he'd ordered people killed.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

nathanvanfleet 4y ago

We all remember he was trying to get a handful of people assassinated right?

arcticbull 4y ago

He literally tried to murder a few separate people.

wil421 4y ago

Trying to get a hit on someone is more than 10 years alone and he ran an online drug market.

greenthrow 4y ago

Either you don't know the extent of what he did and what he enabled or you and I do not share any kind of sense of justice.

peanut_worm 4y ago

Are you sure? I believe he tried to have two people assassinated.

pennaMan 4y ago

His actual crime is subjucating the totality of the state beyond what the state thought was possible.

iudqnolq 4y ago

Yes, but he's not unique. In fact, he's much less sympathetic that most of the people in there with him. I find it quite sad that people on this site will say things like "it was unjust for allegations not proved at trial to be used against him at sentencing" and yet always believe that this same logic shouldn't apply to the "average bad person". The logical extension of the arguments below you is at a minimum support for someone like Chesa Boudin. Probably it's far further than what Boudin's (at least publicly) expressed. (Quotes not direct. Combinations of things I've heard many different people say differently)