Founder of Silk Road website jailed for life

The convicted mastermind behind the world’s largest online narcotics emporium has been sentenced to life.

Sat, 30 May, 2015 - 01:00

The judge also ordered Ross Ulbricht, aged 31, to forfeit $184m (€167m).

Ulbricht faced anywhere from 20 years to life in prison for his role in running Silk Road under the pseudonym “Dread Pirate Roberts.” It was estimated that roughly $1.2bn in illegal drug transactions took place.

Ulbricht was convicted in February on all seven counts including trafficking drugs online, narcotics-trafficking conspiracy, running a continuing criminal enterprise, computer-hacking conspiracy, and money-laundering conspiracy.

Parents of drug overdose victims reportedly spoke before sentencing, and Ulbricht cried as he apologised.

“I never wanted that to happen,” he said.

Last week, Ulbricht and 97 of his friends and relatives wrote letters to US judge Katherine Forrest pleading for the most lenient sentence possible — 20 years.

Ulbricht’s own letter is significant given his decision not to testify during the trial. In it, he showed public remorse for his actions for the first time since the trial began in early January.

“Even now I understand what a terrible mistake I made,” he wrote. “I’ve had my youth, and I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age. Please leave me a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself in the free world before I meet my maker.”

While Ulbricht’s defence lawyer, Joshua Dratel, never denied Ulbricht had founded Silk Road, he argued he left the site at its peak for quite some time and only rejoined before his arrest. Dratel repeatedly claimed somebody else took over the site and expanded it into the massive narcotics emporium it became.

Throughout the trial, the prosecution attempted to characterise Ulbricht as a ruthless drug kingpin who was “motivated by greed and vanity,” and whose website resulted in countless addictions and multiple drug-related deaths.